All Pet Dogs Breed

Whether it’s during a run through the park or after offering a treat, there’s no feeling like looking at your pet adoringly and getting a loving stare right back. You don’t have to tell dog lovers the feeling is both mutual (and very real), but a new study published in the journal Science reveals the fascinating reason why we feel so close to our furry companions: When humans and dogs look into each other’s eyes, both get a boost of the feel-good hormone oxytocin, which is the same hormone behind the special bond between new parents and their babies. To reach their results, researchers had 30 dog-and-human pairs come into a lab to look in each other’s eyes and give urine samples. Oxytocin concentrations were then measured in the human and animal samples. In the end, the dogs had a 130 percent rise in oxytocin levels, and owners showed a 300 percent increase, regardless of gender. Your pets do a lot more than just make you feel happine...

BREEDS A-Z EXPERT ADVICE PRODUCT & SERVICES SPORTS & EVENTS CLUBS & DELEGATES Event Search Find a Puppy Register Your Do ow to Calculate Dog Years to Human Years Since the 1950s, the popular calculation of how old a dog was “in human years” has been that 1 dog year is the equivalent of 7 human ones. Even though this formula has been around for a surprisingly long time, the reality is not so cut-and-dried. That doesn’t stop many people from defaulting to this traditional calculation. “You can’t really kill the seven-year rule,” says Kelly M. Cassidy, a curator of the Charles River. Connor Museum  at Washington State University, who compiles studies about longevity in dogs. One explanation for how this formula got started is that the 7:1 ratio seems to have been based on the st...