This was published 8 months ago
For all the talk of dogs and humans being best friends, sometimes representatives of the two species just don’t click. Giving up an unsuitable family pet can be heartbreaking, but, if the animal is an expensive working dog, it can also be financially ruinous. Guide dogs, for example, can cost up to $50,000 to train, but about a third are returned because they don’t bond with their allocated owner.
To cut down on the number of mismatches, researchers in Germany are trying to develop more harmonious pooch-person relationships. Their work towards that goal has now confirmed what many dog owners already suspected, and what some may be reluctant to admit: dogs really do look like their humans. More relevant to the quest for lasting friendships, they have similar personalities too.
“We are interested in understanding what makes a good dog-owner match and to find out how we can find the right dog for a person,” says Yana Bender, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena. “To do that, we first need to establish the status quo: are dogs and their owners generally more similar or more different?”
Writing in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Bender and her colleagues have reviewed the available evidence to show how the similarities show through. One domain concerns physical appearance. Though it might sound barking, numerous studies in recent decades have shown that people really can match pictures of dogs to their owners more often and more reliably than would be possible with guesswork alone.
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Some sources of similarity are clear: women with short hair tend to own dogs with short ears, for example, and those with long hair tend to favour long-eared breeds. People with higher body-mass-indices also tend to have more overweight dogs. Other connections are less obvious, as shown by research revealing dogs and owners can be correctly paired from pictures in which only their eyes are visible.
A similar affinity bias may be at play for invisible characteristics as well, with owners’ personality traits mirrored in the way their dogs behave. Introverted owners have dogs that are more nervous around strangers, neurotics are more likely to pair with aggressive pets and conscientious people own dogs that are more motivated and easier to train. Owners of breeds classed as dangerous, such as the notorious XL Bully, rate themselves higher on traits such as sensation-seeking and psychopathy.
What is going on? Psychologists have known for decades that humans place more value on relationships with people who look and behave like them, and the same seems to apply to dogs. Women with short hair rate short-eared breeds such as the Siberian husky and basenji as friendlier and more intelligent. Long-haired women think the same about beagles and springer spaniels. (What the dogs think is a question for another day.)
The phenomenon of matching personalities appears to be more complex than that of matching looks. Rather than people simply selecting a dog they believe matches their personality, the moods and behaviour of the owner could influence and shape the dog over time – and to a lesser extent, vice versa. Being around less confident people, for example, could make a dog more nervous, while having an anxious dog can exacerbate an owner’s worries.
Similar influences have been found in human-human relationships. “Married couples tend to resemble each other more over time,” Bender says.
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There are other parallels to human relationships too. In related research, Bender has interviewed guide dog owners about what works and what doesn’t. Among those who felt incompatible with their dog were owners who said they had a better relationship with a former dog. Another said their pooch didn’t enjoy the same music as them. One said their dog was too meticulous. For best results, find a dog that looks and thinks like you do. Alternatively, consider a cat.
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