Dogs produce tears when reunited with owners, study finds

It is possible that your dog is bursting with emotion and crying all the time.

Dogs produce tears when they see their owners, according to researchers in Japan. The levels of thebonding hormone seem to be related to the levels of the blubbing.

According to the team, this is the first report showing that positive emotion stimulates tear secretion in a non- human animal.

They describe how eye contact between humans and dogs encourages the former to care for the other, while the gaze of a dog can cause a release of the stress hormone. Humans are said to nurture dogs' ability to raise their eyebrows.

Researchers in Japan found tears could have the same effect.

Prof Takefumi Kikusui, a co-author of the research at Azabu University, said that he had a female pregnant six years ago. When she nursed her puppies, she realized her eyes were teary.

He said that he thought that it might increase tears. When interacting with dogs and owners, we have observed the release of the stress hormone, oxytocin. We did an experiment.

Schirmer's test was used to measure the volume of tears produced by 18 dogs when in their normal home environment. A strip of paper is placed inside the lower eyelid to measure how far along the strip is.

The team compared this volume against the one produced within the first five minutes of the dogs being brought back to their owners.

According to the researchers, the dogs produced more tears when they are with their owners than when they are alone. The increase was not seen when 20 dogs were brought back to their owner.

An experiment involving 22 dogs showed that dropping oxytocin into their eyes increased the amount of tears they produced.

The team presented 74 people with 10 photos of five dogs and asked them to rate on a five-point scale how much they wanted to avoid or care for the animal. The results show that more people want to care for the dogs. According to the team, teary canine eyes may be the cause of human emotions.

Dogs have gained high-level communication abilities with humans using eye contact.

Their tears may play a role in eliciting protective behavior from their owners, and it may deepen mutual relationships and bonding between humans and their canine companions.

While the team found that dogs show an increase of tears during reunions with their owners, questions remain.

We don't know if dogs show an increase of tears during the reunion. He said that they don't know how dogs communicate with each other. The social function of dog tears needs to be clarified.