Your Dog’s Irresistible Puppy Eyes Are intentional

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Dogs are cute but wait until they give you those adorable puppy eyes, they become irresistible.

And your furry pet knows this too well. Yes, your cheeky pet is using his facial expression to make you do what he wants.

According to a recent study published in Science Daily, dogs use their puppy eyes look only when they are with humans.

In fact, they rarely use it on other pets.

Meaning?

Your mischievous pet is giving you that facial impression intentionally.  They are actually manipulating you to do what they want.

Another paper recorded that dogs’ facial expressions have evolved to better communicate with their human owners, resulting to those irresistible facial expressions.

So, how exactly did this manipulation come about?

Read on.

1. Domesticated Dogs Have Evolved to Make Themselves Look Cuter To Us

Your dog’s puppy dog eyes are an evolutionary characteristic meant to make your dog look cuter so that you can pay more attention to her.

Domesticated dogs have developed muscles that allow them to raise their eyebrows and make their eyes look bigger like that of an infant. Unlike wolves, dogs have extra eye muscles that allow them to control their inner eyebrows’ movement.

2. Eye Contact Is Extremely Important For Dog-Human Communication

Just as humans gaze into the eyes of people they adore, dogs too express affection through staring at their owner’s eyes.

This mutual gaze between you and your pet enhances the bond between the two of you. This bond is comparable to a parent-infant bond. This gaze has evolved for the past 33,000 years to what we see today.

3. The Eyes Have It When It Comes To Dogs Being Adopted At Shelter Homes

A 2013 study found out that dogs who raise their eyebrows to give the puppy eyes look were likely to be adopted faster than those who didn’t.

The eyebrow raise seemed to be the most influential look when it came to how quickly a pup was adopted. Other facial expressions did not have the same effect

4. Dogs Are Extremely Good At Reading Communication Cues

Your dog is highly sensitive to human communication cues compared to other pets. According to a new study, dogs can follow their owner’s gaze just like a pre-verbal six-month-old infant. This may be one reason why early humans choose them for domestication, as other pets do not have this capability. With time dogs have evolved, and their abilities to tune to human communication cues have become better.

5. We Are Partly Responsible For Dogs Manipulating Us

If you’re angry that your cute pet has been manipulating you all along with their irresistible dog face, don’t be.  This manipulation is a result of humans domesticating these pets.

Dogs’ expressive eyebrows are also due to human breeding and selection. So in the real sense, we are partly to blame for our pooches’ manipulative moves.

6. Eye Contact Between Humans And Dogs Leads To The Release Of The Oxytocin Hormone

Oxytocin is also referred to as the love hormone. A gaze into your pet’s eyes increases the release of the oxytocin hormone. This is the same hormone released when a parent looks at his or her child.

7. Dogs Make Eye Contact With Humans To Seek Solutions To Their Problems

Human-directed eye contact by dogs is a way for your canine to seek assistance when they have a problem.

Since dogs can’t tell you what they need through speech, they often use eye contact to communicate and let you know they need something.  This is why when you make eye contact with your dog, they will conclude that you’re trying to communicate with them.

8. Dogs Facial Expression Evolved To Elicit Nurturing Emotions From Humans

Dogs learned to perform puppy dog eyes to make them more appealing to humans and trigger a nurturing response from them.

This evolutionary change in dogs began around 33000 years ago when humans started domesticating wolves.