Dogs have been man's constant companions for thousands of years - historians have discovered graves in which dogs are buried together with man, dating back more than 14,000 years of history. According to some estimates, our bond with dogs may be twice as old. The question is actually why do dogs and humans love each other so much?
Why do dogs and humans love each other so much? A simple answer to this question is practically impossible. One of the reasons is that for many years we have been living in symbiosis as members of two different species. Historically, we have dogs helped hunt and defend our tribe from intruders, and we gave to the dogs shelter, food and warmth. However, today there are countless dog owners who do not have the latter to guard their house or help them catch dinner. Reciprocity shifted to emotional level – many people have dogs for companions and the latter have become very good at it.
And that's exactly what dogs are into different from other animals, which are evolutionarily very close to them - say from wolves. Scientists have discovered that wolves and dogs share 99% of the same DNA. That 1% also hides one of the differences which makes dogs our best friends and wolves wild animals. Dogs have unlike wolves on on the sixth chromosome, three gene records that code for hypersociability. It is possible that humans and dogs use very similar genetic codes to regulate our social behavior.
This study she discovered that one of the reasons we have such a special bond with dogs is that dogs show more facial expressions when playing with people – they move the eyebrow area more, their pupils are bigger, they raise their ears more, etc.
