The shelf · Pets, robots and AI companions
Does Dog Is Love hold up?
Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You, by Clive D. L. Wynne (2019)
A behavioural scientist argues that dogs' defining trait is a capacity for affection across species.
The short answer
Promising but early: its genetic claim rests on a small sample, and its oxytocin claim is disputed.
The claims, checked
Dogs carry gene variants linked to Williams syndrome that explain their drive to seek out people.
Holds with conditions Found in 18 dogs and 10 wolves (Science Advances, 2017). The sample is small and the result shows a possible cause, not a proven one.
Evidence: vonHoldt et al., 2017
Oxytocin rises when dogs and humans gaze into each other's eyes.
Contested Later work found human oxytocin results inconsistent and possibly affected by publication bias.
Evidence: Marshall-Pescini et al., 2019