Dogs cry tears of joy when their favourite humans return home.
Our canine companions often bark and enthusiastically lick their owners’ faces when they get home, but they also become tearful, a Japanese study found.
The study’s results, published in the Journal of Current Biology, stated dogs’ tears appear to be linked to oxytocin, the bonding hormone.
It was the first study to find ‘happy tears’ in an animal other than humans, the research team told The Guardian.
“This is the first report demonstrating that positive emotion stimulates tear secretion in a non-human animal, and that oxytocin functions in tear secretion,” they said.
