Oxytocin Levels Study Determines Dogs Love their Owners More Than Cats Settled!

Dogs versus cats is one of the oldest debates around. Cat fans insist their feline friends are better, while dog people insist their fluffy canine pals are superior. One of the main arguments in favor of dogs seems to be that dogs love their human friends more, but no one had ever proved that... until now. Cat fans fear not, though, as a new study is proving that while dogs do in fact show more "love" than cats, cats do still get a buzz from being around their owners.

According to a new study done by researchers for an upcoming BBC documentary called Cats vs. Dogs, dogs feel five times more love than cats do around their owners. Scientists learned last year that dogs, like humans, feel oxytocin, the "feeling" hormone that gives off the warm fuzzy feeling of love and bonding.

However, the same study was never done on cats. According to Dr. Paul Zak, one of the men behind the study, "We have pretty good evidence that dogs actually love their humans. A couple of small-scale studies have shown that when owners interact with their dogs, the human and their dog appear to release oxytocin."

He also explains, "It's one of the chemical measures of love in mammals. Humans produce the hormone in our brains when we care about someone. For example, when we see our spouse or child the levels in our bloodstream typically rise by 40-60 per cent."

These numbers apparently hold true for dogs as well. Zak took saliva from 10 cats and 10 dogs both 10 minutes before playing with their owners and right after play stopped. He then tested the levels of oxytocin in all of the samples.

Zak found that, on average, dogs showed an increase of 57.2 percent after playing with their owners, while cats only showed an increase of 12 percent. He believes this is all good news, saying, "I was really surprised to discover that dogs produced such high levels of oxytocin... the dog level of 57.2 per cent is a very powerful response. It shows these dogs really care about their owners."

And the news is good for cat advocates, too. "It was also a nice surprise to discover that cats produce any at all. At least some of the time, cats seem to bond with their owners," he says.