A recent study showed that dogs, like people, tend to shed tears of joy.
Your pet may cry with happiness after being away from you for a long time.
For a long time it was believed that tears in dogs had nothing to do with the expression of emotions.
After all, the main functions of tears are moisturizing and cleansing the eyes.
Moreover, dogs can shed tears of joy in various situations that are pleasant for them.
For example: when a mother feeds puppies, her body produces the hormone of love - oxytocin.
To test the theory, the researchers measured the volume of dogs' tears before and after meeting their owners.
The result showed that the volume of tears after a joyful meeting with the owner increased.
In addition, the team of scientists asked people to rate photos of dogs with artificial and real tears.
The participants guessed the animal’s emotions correctly.
Thus, such expression of pleasant emotions in dogs strengthens the special bond between pet and owner.
Since a person unconsciously reads non-verbal signals in dogs.
However, scientists still don't know if dogs' tears are also associated with negative emotions.
This fact shows how attached dogs can really be to people and how deep the connection between an animal and a person can be.
