Something To Talk About

Do you talk to your dog in full sentences?  Do you tell them all about your day, asking them questions about theirs as well?  You're not alone.  While I think we all realize that our dogs can't answer us back (though we often fill in the conversational blanks for them, right?), we continue to converse with them on and off all day long.  You do this, I do this, and a large proportion of dog owners around the world do it too.  Seems there is actually something to this, according to science.

When we carry on our one-sided conversations with our dogs, it triggers the same activity in our brains as conversations with other humans do. Meaning, our brains process those Q & A sessions with our dogs as real conversations. These verbal interactions with our dogs are a form of social bonding akin to having a conversation with another human being. For folks like me who live alone, these conversations are actually life-affirming.  Studies show a 31% decreased rate of depression for those who lived alone with dogs versus those who lived alone without them.  This doesn't mean that dogs are a substitute for human contact, but rather amazingly that they are the same as far as our brain is concerned.  When you talk to your dogs, even though they don't talk back, your brain believes you've made a real social connection, building those neural pathways.  Studies have demonstrated that when we talk to our dogs in full sentences, our bodies experience an increase in oxytocin (the "love hormone") and a decrease in cortisol (the "stress hormone").  Our dogs don't have to talk back to us; their eye contact, proximity to us, attentive behavior, and active listening register as real social engagement to our nervous system.

Dog owners living alone often get teased for having conversations with their dogs.  They are told how silly it looks when clearly dogs don't talk back. But here's the thing:  Dogs do communicate with us and their attentiveness and desire to interact with us is the way they do it.  Ask any dog owner and they'll tell you:  Dogs communicate very clearly with us through body language cues.  If it's dinner time and you've not made your way to the kitchen, they'll try to lead you there. And if you ask them if it's time or if they are hungry, their response is quite clearly yes, via a game of canine charades! I often find my conversations with my dogs more rewarding than some of my social interactions with other people during the day, and I don't believe that's just me.  Dogs don't judge the way so many people we encounter do.  

So, just keep chatting away with your dogs.  They appreciate when you do and your brain and body are reaping all kinds of long term health benefits. Just because you want to stay home and hang out with your dog doesn't make you anti-social. On the contrary, you're engaging in equivalent social bonding with your canine companions. And you can quote me on that.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me. I'll be here, talking to my dogs.

Nobody listens better than Henley.  He follows me around, hanging on my every word.  If I'm working and not talking to anyone, he'll come over, nose me, and look me straight in the eye as he's doing in this photo. Just look at that eye contact and attentive listening.  No, I don't have treats in my hand.  This is just a sweet dog engaged in social bonding with his human.