Dog My Bestie

A Little About the Star: Dogs and humans have one of the most thoroughly studied bonds in science. A study in Science found that when dogs gaze at their owners, oxytocin rises in both the owner and the dog. Oxytocin is the same bonding hormone linked to mothers and babies. Human-raised wolves rarely gazed at their owners and showed little change in oxytocin, which suggests this loop developed during domestication. Archaeology points the same way. Dogs were buried alongside humans in cemeteries, which suggests they were valued very highly, and wolves likely foraged around human campsites and gradually became bolder. Some researchers do question how unique the dog-human bond really is, so the picture is still being worked out. Can’t Ignore Those Puppy Dog Eyes? Oxytocin Explains Why +2

That bond is why dog stories work so well on screen. The best-known is Hachiko, the loyal Akita who waited at Shibuya station in the 1920s for ten years after his professor died. He became a national treasure and has a bronze statue at the spot where he waited. It was filmed in Japan in 1987 and remade in 2009 as Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, with Richard Gere. Other classics include Lassie Come Home (1943), the story of a collie escaping her kennel to return to her owner, and Old Yeller (1957), the first Disney live-action film chosen for the National Film Registry. There is also Beethoven (1992), which boosted the popularity of the St. Bernard breed, and Marley & Me (2008), the true story of the Grogan family and their destructive Labrador. Balto (1995) was loosely based on the real dog from the 1925 serum run to Nome. I didn’t find direct figures comparing dog and cat films, so “dog movies are more popular” is a reasonable impression but not something I’ve verified. film review hachi dogs tale 3066715 +6

For Continue Reading

Nagasawa M. et al. Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds. Science (2015). Asian Scientist summary · Psychology Today · The Pipette Pen
Losey R. on the archaeology of the dog-human bond. University of Alberta
Hachi: A Dog’s Tale review. Coventry Telegraph
Famous dog movies. Dogster · Cineworld · Bark