Studies Claim Dogs Are Actually Women's Best Friends, Not Man's

We all have grown up hearing that dogs are man's best friend. History is replete with instances of a man and a dog coming together for activities like hunting and protecting the house and the family. But recent studies show that women are dogs' better friends as they are the ones who domesticate them and form emotional bonds with them.  

A study titled “Dog-Human Coevolution: Cross-Cultural Analysis of Multiple Hypotheses" published in December 2020 in the Journal of Ethnobiology of Washington State University claimed that women are dogs' best friends. The anthropologists and the Ph.D. students, who were the researchers of the study, said that women had a "special relationship" with dogs and a "greater impact on the dog-human bond than relationships with men".

Women showered love and mourned on their dogs' death: study

The study analysed 144 ancient communities across the globe where there was evidence of keeping dogs. It was found that women had a special bond with dogs as they were the ones who showed love to them, gave dogs names, let them sleep indoors and even mourned when they died.

Jaime Chambers, a Ph.D. student who was a part of the study, said, "Humans were more likely to regard dogs as a type of person if the dogs had a special relationship with women. They were more likely to be included in family life, treated as subjects of affection and generally, people had greater regard for them. We found that dogs' relationships with women might have had a greater impact on the dog-human bond than relationships with men."

The study that had 1000 respondents revealed that women can sleep much better next to dogs than other people. This is probably because women feel at ease when they are with dogs who provide a sense of security more than human beings. 

Women guess the right meaning behind the growls of the dogs

Another study published by the Royal Society of Open Sciences claimed that women, more than men, are in tune with dogs' emotions. Women can perceive the meaning behind dogs' growls and are good at understanding their needs and wants. 

The study recorded the growls of 18 dogs in different situations- hunger, being threatened, playful, fearful and more. Forty humans were made to listen to those sounds. The study found that people with pets were able to respond more correctly than people without pets. Moreover, while people named and labelled the correct meaning of the growls 63 per cent of the time, women were able to guess correctly most of the time. 

The reason behind this, as the study says, is that women have higher emotional intelligence with higher empathy, intuition and understanding of emotions compared to men. 

Do you have a pet too? What do you think about your relationship with it?