Dogs aren’t just our pets. We also see them as our friends and family members. But do we get the same things out of our interactions with our dogs that we get out of our interactions with our human friends and family?
Having set out to answer this question in a study in Scientific Reports, a team of researchers from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Hungary has revealed that our relationships with our dogs are a lot like our relationships with our children and our closest friends, albeit with much more control.
“The results highlight that dogs occupy a unique place in our social world — offering the emotional closeness of a child, the ease of a best friend, and the predictability of a relationship shaped by human control — revealing why our bonds with them are often so deeply fulfilling,” said Enikő Kubinyi, a study author and an ethologist (an animal behavior biologist) at ELTE, according to a press release.
