Kids Love With Pets

"Though our brains aren’t ‘wired’ to love dogs, the latter ‘hijack’ the same neural mechanisms that bond us to our kids"

1.   “A dog is not ‘almost human’ and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such,” writes author John Holmes. And yet the reasons we love our dogs are deeply human indeed. 
2. Psychologist John Bowlby’s “attachment theory” identifies two important characteristics of the parent-infant bond in mammals and birds: one, the desire for physical proximity, and an attempt to restore it when separated; two, the display of individual recognition and ‘special’ behaviour toward one another that does not occur with others of their species. 
3. A puppy’s constant need for our specific presence and attention – along with its large forehead, big eyes and chubby cheeks that we find biologically irresistible – tricks our brains into loving him as we would our child. In essence, we aren’t ‘wired’ to love our dogs, but rather they ‘hijack’ the same neural mechanisms that bond us to our children. 
4. Dogs and babies share one other important characteristic: they make us happy. Oxytocin is often described as the most important neurotransmitter responsible for social bonding. “Nicknamed the ‘cuddle chemical’ and the ‘love drug’, oxytocin has been found to dampen stress, combat depression, and breed trust in humans,” writes Ewen Callaway in the New Scientist. 
5. It also plays a key role in cementing the bond between parents and their infants and, as it turns out, dogs. A number of studies show that interaction between humans and their dogs – touching, eye contact, or play – produces a significant spike of oxytocin in both.