Dogs love us as much as we love them!

According to today's surveys, dogs are a large part of about 50% of American households. From the way they wag there tails, lick us and cuddle with us, can we be sure that they really love us back? The answer is yes, thanks to the recent growth in brain imaging technology, which gives us a look inside the brain of a dog. According to a study, "not only do dogs seem to love us back, they actually see us as their family. It turns out that dogs rely on humans more than they do their own kind of affection, protections and everything in between." The most recent evidence pertaining to the dog brain is that scientists found that dog owners' aroma sparked activation in the "reward center" of the brain, which is called the caudate nucleus. This evidence comes from scientists at Emory University who trained dogs to lie on an MRI machine and used functional MRI to measure the neural responses when smelling both people and dogs. Along with this evidence, researchers in Budapest at Eotvos Lorand University studied canine brain activity in response to both human and dog sounds. This study revealed that there are similarities in the way dog and human brains process emotional vocal sounds. "In short: Dogs don't just seem to pick up on our subtle mood changes - they are actually physically wired to pick up on them." We now most definitely know that our pets love us as much as we hoped, even maybe more. I found this article very exciting because it clarifies that my dog loves me as much as I love her. When she barks and wags her tail when I walk through the door, I now know that she is really happy to see me. I don't know what I would do without her.