Your dogs are just as excited to see you as you are them.
If you’re a dog owner, coming home after work or running errands to the enthusiastic greeting of your dog may be one of the best parts of your day. Besides their furiously wagging tails and their tip-tapping feet, there is an excited gleam in their eyes. They missed you just as much as you missed them. According to a new study, that gleam in their eyes may actually be tears — tears of joy to reunite with you.
According to the study authors, oxytocin is released in both dogs and their owners when they interact. To determine if oxytocin caused a dog to produce tears, the researchers ran a reunification test of the dogs and their owners. Second, the researchers added oxytocin to the dogs' eyes when they weren’t around their owners, and tear production also went up. This indicates that when a dog naturally produces oxytocin — like when they see their owners — they get teary-eyed.
“We had never heard of the discovery that animals shed tears in joyful situations, such as reuniting with their owners, and we were all excited that this would be a world first!” says Kikusui in a press release.
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