Last fall, a 77-pound dachshund named Obie visited the Today show for a spot on pet obesity. “No doubt,” a veterinarian announced to Al Roker as they stood over the table where Obie lay splayed like a pork loin, “this is the biggest dachshund I’ve ever seen.” Roker wondered aloud whether the biggest dachshund might be part of a bigger problem: “Is there a correlation between overweight pet owners and overweight pets?”
[10] Song et al., “Cohabiting Family Members Share Microbiota With One Another and With Their Dogs” (eLife, April 2013)
While the Law of Attraction—like attracts like, or in this case, adopts like—might explain some of these similarities, theres reason to think pets also emulate their owners. A 2011 study found that dogs tasked with opening a door preferred whichever of two methods of door-opening they had just observed their owners use (head or hands/paws), even when offered a treat for the opposite choice. Researchers concluded that dogs possess an “automatic imitation” instinct that can override both natural behavior and self-interest [8]. Dogs are also more susceptible to yawn contagion (an indicator of social attachment) when it’s their master, rather than a stranger, doing the yawning [9].
Could there be something to the old adage that people resemble their pets? The phenomenon has been amply documented. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that strangers can match photos of dogs with photos of their owners at a rate well above chance [4]. Perhaps people are drawn to animals that look like them. In a study of female college students, those with longer hair judged flop-eared dogs—spaniels, beagles—to be more attractive, friendly, and intelligent than dogs with pointy ears; women with shorter hair concluded the opposite [5]. And the apparent affinity between owners and pets is more than fur-deep: One analysis found self-described “dog people” to be less neurotic than “cat people,” who were more curious [6]. Another study, which cross-referenced personality-test scores and breed preferences, noted that disagreeable people favored aggressive dogs [7].
[9] Romero et al., “Familiarity Bias and Physiological Responses in Contagious Yawning by Dogs Support Link to Empathy” (plos One, Aug. 2013)
Dogs and their owners tend to look alike, and scientists (plus, pretty much anyone who owns a dog) have known for years that even strangers, when asked to look at s of dogs and people, can correctly match owners to their dogs with above-random rates of success. But the exact attributes that dogs and people share remained a mystery.
Now, new research conducted in Japan has nailed down one clue. As Slate reports, the factor dogs and humans have in common, the researchers found, is the eyes.
Next, the researchers obscured parts of the photos, covering either the dogs or the humans eyes or mouth, Slate explains. The participants still did well if the mouths were covered, with a success rate of 73 percent. When the eyes were covered, however, that rate dropped drastically, with success becoming a matter of random chance. Encouraged by this finding, Slate writes, the team cropped the s to only show the eyes of the humans and their dogs. Impressively, students who saw just the eye photos had a 74 percent success rate.
Apparently, the key give-away linking dog and human is the eyes. What specifically give us what Slate calls an “apparently superhuman (or at least subconscious) ability to extract meaningful psychological cues from eyes” remains unknown. But theres something about those big, wet, adorable doggie eyes that connects humans to the pets they pick. Recommended Videos Most Popular
To arrive at this conclusion, the researchers recruited around 500 college students and asked them to look at photos of 40 people and dogs, all shown from the shoulders up, against white backgrounds. The people and dogs were paired, some in the correct combination of owner and pet, others randomly. The participants task was to pick out which combinations of actual pets and owners, and they chose correctly 80 percent of the time.
Do you know that scene in the animated version of “101 Dalmatians” when Pongo is staring out the window looking for a girlfriend for his owner Roger? Do you remember how each dog and owner pair that goes by seems to be mirror reflections of each other? That’s because, in real life, there really is a strange phenomenon of how dogs and their owners seem to resemble one another. There is even scientific research to back it up.
And if you’re not convinced by the science of it all, there is always the hashtag #dogownerlookalike on Instagram that may change your mind:
And in more recent work, Nakajima has gone even further when he developed another experiment testing if specific facial features were key to correctly matching up dogs with their owners. He created two different sheets of dog and human pictures. One sheet had dogs correctly matched with their owners, while the other sheet had mismatched dogs and owners. In order to see whether or not the facial features were key, Nakajima blacked out the eyes or mouths in the photos of the photos. Then, the study’s participants were randomly given one of five different photo pairings and asked to identify which pairs were correctly the dogs with their owners.
Nakajima discovered that it’s all in the eyes. When either the human’s or dog’s eyes were covered, accuracy went down to about 50%. Basically, the participants had the same accuracy has just random guessing when the eyes were covered. However, when the eyes were not covered, participants experienced a 74% accuracy when correctly matching dogs and owners.
There have been other researchers that have discovered that owners are typically responsible for this doppelganger effect when picking dogs because apparently, it’s similar to picking a mate. When people go adopt a dog, they tend to opt for dogs that are more familiar. Of course, they don’t realize it, but they’re actually looking for physical features as well as personality traits that closely resemble their own. For example, researchers have noticed that dogs and owners tend to share traits such as extroversion or shyness. In fact, it is believed to be that the personalities of dogs and their owners may be more closely matched than those of married couples!
Do These People Look Like Their Dogs?
A dog being described as “Nicolas Cage dressed as an ewok” has completely stupefied the internet for his human-like appearance. But there might be a scientific reason why we cant help but think theres a middle-aged man hiding underneath this fluffy veneer.
BuzzFeed News reports that Yogi, a one-year-old Shih-poo, has gone viral for reasons completely obvious to anyone whos seen his photo. I mean, this is a person, right?
Yes, Yogi is a star. But why does he look so human? One reason is, of course, that Yogi is a human, trapped inside the mortal coil of a dog. That said, its probably more likely our brains are tricking us into believing that this very good boy is actually one of us.
There are years of research to suggest human brains recognize certain animals faces as “cute” or “human-like” in a phenomenon dubbed “baby schema.” Basically, humans see certain facial features in animals (e.g. big eyes, round cheeks) that we typically associate with baby humans. Our brains associate human baby features with cuteness, and thus, we project these qualities onto pets, including cats and dogs.
In this case, maybe its Yogis mournful stare and round face that reminds us of a baby experiencing an existential crisis.
“Ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that baby schema (Kindchenschema) is a set of infantile physical features such as the large head, round face, and big eyes that is perceived as cute and motivates caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival,” researchers in a 2009 study published in the journal “Ethology” report.
While cuteness is literally in the eye of the beholder, its possible that our brains are hardwired to see facial features like Yogis as, well, human. Because of that, we feel naturally inclined to take care of them, or in this case, give them treats and scratches.
Yogi could not be reached at this time to confirm or deny that hes in fact a person, specifically Nicolas Cage.
Read next Newsletter Top editors give you the stories you want — delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while youre on the go. Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our