Researchers of a new study have found that building bonds and close relationships are not confined to humans alone and even animals, especially domestic ones feel the need to build such bonds.
Humans are known to build close bonds and relationships with other humans and this is an important characteristic of every human being. However, researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) have found that this bond building is not confined to humans alone. Even animals, especially domestic ones feel the need to build such bonds. Dogs are known to build close bonds not only with their own kind but with their owners as well.
Authors of this new research studied the bond a dog builds with its owner and found that it has many similarities to a parent-child bond. This parent-child like bond has developed over 15,000 years that man and dogs have learnt to live in close association with each other. Dogs have become so accustomed to living in the presence of a human, that a dog's owner has, in most cases, become the dog's main social partner.
Lisa Horn from the Vetmeduni's Messerli Research Institute states in a press release that the "secure base effect" also present in a parent-child bond is the main aspect of the human-dog relationship. Human infants are known to use the person who takes care of them as a secure base when it comes to interacting with the environment. In this study, Horn closely analyzed the "secure base effect" in dogs. She conducted an experiment wherein she studied the reaction of the dogs in three different situations - "absent owner", silent owner" and "encouraging owner." The dogs were asked to take part in activities where they would be rewarded with food. Horn found that in the absence of its owner, dogs were less keen on working to win the award, even if it was food. Whether the owner remained silent or encouraging was of little influence. When the owner was replaced with the stranger, Horn noticed that the dog hardly interacted with the stranger nor was it motivated to earn the reward.
"One of the things that really surprised us is, that adult dogs behave towards their caregivers like human children do. It will be really interesting to try to find out how this behavior evolved in the dogs with direct comparisons," Horn concluded.
The findings are published in the journal PLOS ONE.
