【Watch Hugas Online】

Source：Exquisite Information Network Editor：Entertainment Time：2025-06-26 07:10:16

When you returned home from summer vacation,Watch Hugas Online your dog might have leapt out the door, jumped on you, and licked your face. And that's not all.

The emotions gushing inside your dog could make its eyes wet, says a new study recently published in the science journal Current Biology.

Researchers suggest the love hormone oxytocin drives this tear secretion. Mammals, like dogs, release oxytocinwhile bonding with their babies. The lead author Takefumi Kikusui is a dog parent himself, and noticed that his poodle’s eyes become watery when it nursed its puppies.

You May Also Like

"That gave me the idea that oxytocin might increase tears. So, we performed a reunion experiment with the owners," said Kikusui, who is a veterinary medicine professor at Azabu University in Japan.

SEE ALSO: Dogs are smarter than you think

For the test, veterinarians folded a strip into the dog’s lower eyelid and temporarily clasped it there, which is commonly done to diagnose dry eyes in dogs. The strip measures tears that are already there, tears that are secreted because of the strip itself (which slightly irritates the eyes), and tear secretion that happens apart from the irritation.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

To be certain if dogs really produced tears because of affinity with their owners, and not anyone else, the researchers also included people who the dogs were familiar with, but not their owners. The tear volume increased significantly when the dogs met their owners, and not when they met their acquaintances. They also applied oxytocin solution to the dogs’ eyes and found tear secretion levels went up even more. The researchers used around 20 dogs in each of the experiments.

"I think this is potentially a groundbreaking experiment, simple and clever."

"I think this is potentially a groundbreaking experiment, simple and clever," Miiamaaria Kujala, a cognitive neuroscience professor at the University of Helsinki in Finland, told Mashable. Kujala was not involved in the recent study.

Nobody previously thought to conduct this kind of experiment on tear volume before, because dogs or other animals don’t often cry visibly, she explained. But the scientific community will have to repeat this experiment in the future to confirm this finding, Kujala cautions.

The study also found that the dogs' teary eyes triggered more caregiving in humans. The researchers asked participants to rate their impressions of photos of dogs with artificial tears, asking how much they wanted to care for dogs. They ranked dog photos with artificial tears higher than those dogs without tears.

【Watch Hugas Online】

Related Articles

Related Recommendations

Categories

Latest Articles

Popular Articles

Hot Recommendations

Featured Column

Quick Links

Quick Links