Why do dogs and masters often look alike?

If you go to any park, it is not difficult to witness strange scenes.

Maybe a stubborn bearded guy who went with a dog that looked like they both came from the same barber shop, or a very aggressive looking guy in a clam dog's hand.

You may also see a sporty looking girl running with Afghan dog hunting.

Why do so many people choose pet dogs to look like themselves? The answer can help you appreciate the intimate relationship between people and your four-legged friends.

In fact, the choice of a dog to raise has many similarities with the way we choose a mate.

Michael Roy from the University of California, San Diego, is one of the first to test this idea.

Why do so many people choose pet dogs to look like themselves?

He went to three parks where people took their dogs for a walk and took pictures of dogs and dog owners separately.

After that, he asked a group of participants to test the pairs together.

Although he did not give any suggestions, he realized that these people had correctly assembled their owners and dogs with fairly high accuracy.

This result was then repeated many times.

However, note that testing is only done with purebred dogs and sometimes only on the assessment of appearance: Women with fair hair often prefer long-eared dogs and fat people often like dogs. plump.

However, the test also showed less prominent features, such as the eye shape that both owners and dogs have.

When covering the eyes in the photos, assembling these pairs becomes more difficult for the participants.

Testing is only done with purebred dogs and sometimes based on an assessment of appearance.

Perhaps this is because people like to search for familiarity: A dog may be easier to accept if it is like a member of the family we know well and love.

However, psychologists think that this may be the result of how we evolve and find partners: Dating someone who looks like me can ensure that their genes are often appropriate for us. .

Thanks to this feature, we often like what is a bit like us.

One of the other examples is that people often choose cars in the same way as when choosing dogs. As a result, our cars sometimes look like our pet dogs.

Not only do we like connecting with people who look like us, we also like people with personality.

A few years ago, Borbala Turcsan from the University of Eotvos in Budapest decided to try to see if this applies to our four-legged friends.

"The relationship with pet dogs is very special. They are not only pets but family members, a friend, so we think they can grow in tandem with other relationships. " she said.

Characteristics from people like extrovert, can affect the personality of a pet dog.

The concept of dog personality may sound silly to some people, but previous experiments show that traits from humans like extrovert, can affect the personality of a pet dog - for example as they become more aggressive before strangers, or they are often shy and often hide behind the master's feet.

Currently, there is even a version equivalent to five big questions about human character for dogs: easy to be excited, extrovert, dedicated, pleasant, open.

The dog version relies on simple actions, for example, they are often "lazy" or "indifferent".

Turcsan notes that dogs and owners often have similar personalities.

"These similarities are actually even higher in married couples and between friends , " she said.

What is more important is that this relationship cannot be explained by the number of years that owners and pet dogs have lived together. It means that the pet dog is not merely mimicking the owner.

Humans have domesticated dogs 30,000 years ago to help us hunt.

Instead, this personality seems to have been in the dog from the beginning.

Perhaps we were wise to choose real friends that were right for us, because if we say anything, a dog will often live longer than an average marriage relationship.

Humans have domesticated dogs 30,000 years ago to help us hunt. But then we have nurtured them into our own images, helping us to have an intimate relationship that transcends the natural limits between the two species.

Today, they are like us, acting like us, and different from other people, they always respond to our feelings.

In many different ways, they are our own reflection. No wonder they are the best friends of man.