In recent years, it has been brought forth that dog-human relationships share several characteristics with the maternal bond that unites a child with their principal caregiver (Serpell, 2003) and that mutual gazing—sustained eye contact between two individuals (Rogers, 2013)—could be one particular way in which we express our affection or love with our dogs (Nagasawa et al., 2009). Although affection has already been the subject of many animal studies (e.g., see Harry Harlow's lifelong work with rhesus macaques by Blum, 2002), the possibility that members of two unrelated species could communicate their affection simply by looking at each other is an emerging and fascinating topic for comparative researchers (MacLean and Hare, 2015). Recently, Nagasawa et al. (2015) supported this hypothesis by revealing that oxytocin, a neuropeptide that regulates many forms of social behavior, including bonding and affiliation (Churchland and Winkielman, 2012), is largely involved in the physiological mechanisms underlying mutual gazing between dogs and humans.
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