If you have a dog, you probably feel a strong bond (纽#) with it, A recent study found that this bond may not only be important to kids, but also be important to dogs.
Researchers at Oregon State University studied the relationship between kids and dogs. To do the study, they recruited (招募) 30 young people aged 8 to 17, who have dogs to do an experiment. The kids were asked to bring their dogs to an empty room, In the room, a kid was asked to walk around the huge space, sometimes stopping or changing the direction. "And the dog was left to do whatever the dog wanted to do. " says Monique Udell. one of the study's authors.
But most of the time, the dog didn't do any of those things. Instead, it stayed close to its owner and moved similarly to its owner. The dogs did this far more often than you would expect them to do it by chance.
What does this mean? Udell explains that this is a dog's way of building a relationship with a human, "Dogs always stay close to kids, even though adults are usually the ones who feed and care for them. The kid may play a sibling (兄弟姐妹) role in the life of the dog," Udell says. "Thiss hows that the relationship between kids and dogs is of great importance to the dogs. "
So far, Udell's team's study has just focused on dogs. Udell wonders if the animal-human bond is important to other kinds of pets as well. Rescarchers say that more studies will be done.
