Dogs, more so than almost any other domestic pets, are desperate for human eye contact. and according to a new study, that pull on the heartstrings might be exactly why dogs can give us those looks at all.
Studying the two animals is a bit like cracking open a four-legged time capsule. A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that dogs' faces are structured for complex expression in a way that wolves' aren't.
For the study, a team looked at two muscles (the RAOL and LAOM muscles) that work together to widen and open a dog's eyes, causing them to appear bigger and more lovely, which we read as distinctly humanlike. The muscles for two short, straight lines, which connect the ring of muscle around a dog's eye to either end of the brow above. Therefore, they concluded that the origin of these complex facial expressions is after dogs splitting from wolves. Research has also shown that when dogs work these muscles, humans respond more positively. This isn't simply a coincidental love story, in which the eyes of two species just so happen to meet across a crowded planet.
For a species to change quickly, a pretty powerful force must be acting on it. .We connect more deeply with animals capable of making humanlike facial movements, so dogs have evolved to look like our own human babies to be selected for adoption.
A. Dogs are similar to wolves.
B. And that's where humans come in.
C. It's hard for most people to resist the shining eyes of a little dog.
D. But in the four gray wolves the researchers looked at, neither muscle was present.
E. Like the other best partnerships, this one is more likely the result of years of evolution.
F. Researchers have long been interested in the ways dogs make eye contact with humans.
G. Dogs split off from their wolf relatives — specifically, gray wolves — as many as 33, 000 years ago.
