Fur-mily Resemblance

We’ve all experienced those morning walks at the park when a stranger stops over to give Fido a little neck rub while commenting how alike we look. Not forgetting those Instagram comments from friends that reference Fido as something like our “furry doppelganger”!

With the “like owner, like dog” phrase getting thrown at us so often, we can’t help but wonder if there is any truth in those words. As it turns out, there is.

Several studies have shown that because humans tend to prefer familiar things (the Mere Exposure Effect), we often end up choosing furkids that look similar to us. Professor Stanley Coren from Psychology Today found that many women with hair that covered their ears preferred breeds with long ears, such as the Springer Spaniel and Beagle.

Likewise, short-haired women liked short-haired and pointy-eared dogs. In the study, they were not asked how much they related to the pooches, just how friendly, loyal, and intelligent they thought them to be.

In a separate study by Psychologist Sadahiko Nakajima, the participants were able to correctly guess the “real” dog-owner pairs when put amongst other random dog-human photos.  In his series of tests, the accuracy was as high as 80%!

So there you have it, nobody was imagining anything. We really do look like our furkids—and if you ask us, that’s one welcome compliment!

Photos: Cesar and WikiHow

For more information on the two studies, read here

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201308/do-dogs-look-their-owners

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/people-look-like-their-dogs-study_n_5838278.html