Will Your Pet Reciprocate Love?

When we talk about love, what are we talking about? Is it the anxious attachment that comes with separation, the high levels of oxytocin that accompany each other, or is it some kind of good wish? The first two have been demonstrated in the laboratory, although the third is hard to detect at the moment.

But people are contradictory. In general, love can be selfless, and we never expect pets to return «love» in the same form (which goes against biology)-but throwing a coin out can make a sound, so we have questions The doubts about suppose are not surprising.

We in the 21st century love furry creatures too much. There are now more households with pets in the United States than with minor children, and most people consider dogs and cats to be part of the family. [1-3]

However, dog keepers/cat keepers are not sure how pets view them. We know that we are attached to pets, so do they also «stick» to us?

 

The Law Of Attachment

When psychologists talk about attachment, they don’t just mean warm, fuzzy feelings. They define attachment as a connection with someone who provides safety and security. Think about the role a parent plays in front of a one-year-old: Children like to wander around their parents; parents feel gloomy when they leave; When him/she know that him/she parents will support him, him/she will have enough confidence to explore.

Of course, it is impossible for us to stand up and directly ask pet owners whether they provide this kind of emotional safety. However, the animal investigator used a test. This test is the scary-sounding «Ainsworth Strange Situation Test», originally designed by child psychologist Mary Ainsworth.

In the original version of the test, the child explores a strange room full of toys in the presence of any parent or is alone, or parents and strangers will continue to enter and exit during the process. Children show a safe attachment: they explore more in the presence of their parents, they interact more with strangers when they are nearby, and their emotions change significantly when the parents leave and return. [6]

 

Pet version of «Ainsworth Strange Situation Test»

When the researchers tried to apply this test to pets, they realized that cats and dogs without special training have less ability to concentrate than toddlers. In the original experiment, children always explore the room with their parents first, and strangers come in afterwards, but this process does not apply to test pets. By the time the second person appeared, some pets had completely lost interest in the room, so the experimental results were also invalid.

In order to keep the pet’s attention during the test, the scientist had to switch the order of the different parts: some dogs will explore the room with their owner first, and some dogs will explore the room with strangers first. In addition, some researchers also introduced a second room full of toys, which was only opened midway through the test. [5]

When Robyn Palmer and Deborah Custance performed the test on 38 dogs, they found the following results:

All of these responses are similar to those of a baby who is attached to his parents. The difference is that many young children retreat to their mothers when a stranger comes in for the first time, but few dogs retreat to their owners. Nonetheless, the researchers concluded: «In many ways, our results show that the owner is indeed a safe source of dogs, so we can conclude that human-dog bonding and attachment are exactly the same.»[5]

When Alice Potter and Daniel Mills repeated the experiment on 20 cats, two immediately hid. Ha, interesting things that can arise when studying animal behaviour! However, the remaining 18 successfully completed the experiment. [4]

So what does this experiment show? We don’t get much. The cat’s behaviour hardly changes regardless of whether it is the owner or stranger present, or when there is no one. However, when the owner leaves the cat to the stranger, they bark more than the stranger leaves the cat to the owner.

Overall, there is almost no evidence that cats have a sense of attachment to their owners similar to that of dogs and children to their owners/parents.

The researchers realized that their findings might irritate cat owners everywhere, so they wrote: «We do not deny that cats may have their own social preferences, nor do we deny that some cats may form such attachments under certain conditions. , We have no intention to imply that cats will not form certain deep social connections and will not form a bond with their owners.» [4]

In a word, your cat may love you, but not as deeply attached to you as a dog. (we( Ĭ ^ Ĭ )ep)

 

Pet Attachment & Separation Anxiety

The attachment to the owner is similar to the attachment of the child to the parent, which may explain why some pets develop separation anxiety when they are kept alone at home. From the perspective of human young children, separation anxiety is a normal response and maybe an evolutionary strategy to prevent helpless babies from being ignored. [7] From a dog’s perspective, a recent study suggests that the «normal» level of attachment to the owner may be sufficient for many dogs to experience separation anxiety. [8] Interestingly, separation anxiety may also appear in cats, although it is not that common. [9]

So, how do dogs and (possibly) some cats form a childlike attachment to their owners? It turns out that all of this may be due to chemical reactions.

 

Chemical reactions don’t just apply to Human relationships

You may have heard of oxytocin, which is a natural hormone that not only causes uterine contractions during childbirth but also helps form a mother-child bond. Guess what? Many animals also secrete this hormone, including cats and dogs. [10]

Interestingly, it turns out that dogs secrete oxytocin in large quantities when they are petted or when they face their owners. [11] In order to verify the idea that oxytocin does promote bonding, Giulia Pedretti and colleagues asked dogs to inhale oxytocin through their noses and then observed their behavioural changes. After taking oxytocin, the dog spends more time wandering around the owner. If they are chained and unable to get close to their owner, they will spend more time watching their owner. [11] In other words, this is a self-reinforcing cycle: being with the owner can increase the secretion of oxytocin, and this makes the dog want to stay with the owner more.

The role of oxytocin in the relationship between humans and cats has received less attention. However, a student at Oregon State University did a similar experiment on cats and completed an honorary degree thesis on this basis.

Naomi Sakaguchi smelled oxytocin to 40 stray cats in containment and gave them a placebo at different times to compare their behaviour at different times. In this study, cats were more willing to approach the people involved in the experiment-including Naomi herself and the administrator of the shelter after taking oxytocin than taking a placebo. [12] Unlike dogs, cats do not spend more time playing with people when they approach them.

However, we should remember that these are contained cats, not those domestic cats that have been tested with their owners. Further experiments will investigate whether (domestic) cats, like dogs, will strengthen their bond with their owners when the level of oxytocin increases.

 

«It Takes Two To Tango»

The connection brought by oxytocin is two-way. Studies have found that when people spend time petting or staring at pets, their oxytocin levels also increase. [11] An increase in oxytocin can improve moods, such as increased trust, reduced fear, and lower blood pressure and other physiological changes. [13]

In other words, positive interaction with dogs will make us calmer and our relationship with pets will be deeper. As a result, some researchers have put forward this idea: In the long history of humans and dogs, dogs are more likely to «hijack» the innate connection mechanism that humans originally reserved for children. [14] And all other things being equal, dogs have higher levels of oxytocin than wolves, which may allow dogs to connect with us better. [15]

The two-way attachment between humans and pets shows that humans are more willing to «take practical actions.» When asked how much money they are willing to spend on pets, pet owners usually say that they will spend more money on dogs than cats. Respondents included people who actually have pets (such as those who have both cats and dogs) and people who have assumed that they have pets. The strange thing is that under hypothetical circumstances, people are more willing to spend money on a «cat that behaves like a dog» rather than a «dog that behaves like a cat.» [16]

Why does being like a dog make people more willing to spend money? Researchers speculate that this is related to the sense of control over pet behaviour: dogs are more obedient than cats. This phenomenon may partly stem from the history of dog domestication because humans domesticated dogs thousands of years earlier than cats. [17] However, the attachment of dogs to us may also play a role, which makes them more motivated to please humans. If cats have less attachment to us, then it makes sense that they are less willing to listen to human instructions.

Nowadays, pet owners, especially dog ​​owners, increasingly regard themselves as pet parents. This means that when they enter a new relationship, they will take into account the happiness of their pets, and they will also avoid disputes at home to frighten cats and dogs, and may even fight for pet custody. [18] Ah, they might also call cats and dogs «hairy children» or «hairy babies».

No matter how each individual views these words, the pet’s parents can’t be wrong. In many ways, the relationship between them and their pets is indeed the same as the parent-child relationship. And seriously, can you blame them? After all, it was oxytocin that made them do this.

 

References:

According to a 2017–2018 estimate, 71,377,798 American households include a pet. For more details, see: American Veterinary Medical Association pet ownership statistics for 2017–2018
According to a 2019 estimate, 49,690,000 American households include a child under 18 years of age. For more details, see: Statista Research Department Report on US Demographics in 2019
Arahori, M. et al. (2017). Owners’ view of their pets’ emotions, intellect, and mutual relationship: Cats and dogs compared. Behavioral Processes 141(Pt 3): 316–321. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28267573/
Potter, A. & Mills, D.S. (2015). Domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) do not show signs of secure attachment to their owners. PLoS One 10(9): e0135109. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26332470/
Palmer, R. & Custance, D. (2008). A counterbalanced version of Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Procedure reveals secure-base effects
in dog–human relationships. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 109: 306–319. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159107001050
Strange Situation. (2021, May 21). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_situation
Manicavasagar, V., & Silove, D. (2020). The biological foundations of separation anxiety. In V. Manicavasagar & D. Silove, Separation anxiety disorder in adults: Clinical features, diagnostic dilemmas and treatment guidelines (pp. 111–132). Academic Press. https://www.elsevier.com/books/separation-anxiety-disorder-in-adults/manicavasagar/978-0-12-812554-0
Parnasarathy, V. & Crowell-Davis, S.L. (2021). Relationship between attachment to owners and separation anxiety in pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Journal of Veterinary Behavior 1: 109–120. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155878780600116X
Schwartz, S. (2002). Separation anxiety syndrome in cats: 136 cases (1991–2000). Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 220(7): 1028–33. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12420782/
Kikusui, T. et al. (2019). Endocrine regulations in human–dog
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Pedretti, G. et al. (2021). Artificially elevated oxytocin concentrations in pet dogs are associated with higher proximity-maintenance and gazing towards the owners. Physiology & Behavior 237: 113451. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938421001438
Sakaguchi, N. (2019). The effects of oxytocin on proximity- seeking behavior and vocalizations in shelter cats. [Honors thesis, Oregon State University]. Scholars Archive at OSU. https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/honors_college_theses/tm70n170z
Powell, L. et al. (2019). The physiological function of oxytocin in humans and its acute response to human-dog interactions: A review of the literature. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 30: 25e32. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787818301709
MacLean, E. & Hare, B. (2015). Dogs hijack the human bonding pathway. Science 348: 280–281. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6232/280
Wirobski, G. et al. (2021). Endocrine changes related to dog domestication: Comparing urinary cortisol and oxytocin in hand-raised, pack-living dogs and wolves. Hormones and Behavior 128: 104901. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018506X20302270
Kirk, C.P. (2019). Dogs have masters, cats have staff: Consumers’ psychological ownership and their economic valuation of pets. Journal of Business Research 99: 306–318. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296319301468
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