Dog Lovers, Rejoice

For as long as we can remember, there has been a feud between cat lovers and dog lovers.  While many of us identify as all-around animal lovers, you know you have a slight favorite.

And those of you who identify as dog lovers?  You're in luck.  A new BBC documentary called "Cats vs. Dogs" answers some age old questions we have about our favorite animals.  And one answer they give us is something we already know: dogs love us.  But even further research proves that dogs love us more than cats do.  

Here's how they explain it: dogs, like humans, release oxytocin, AKA the "love hormone," when they are in contact with their owner.  This serves as a chemical measure for love in animals.  Humans produce the hormone in their brain when they see loved ones, too.  When humans see their partner or child, the level of oxytocin in their bloodstream goes up by 40 - 60%.   

While the oxytocin level has been measured in dogs, there has previously been no test done to measure the levels of oxytocin in cats.  This is the experiment "Cats vs. Dogs" did.

They took saliva samples from both cats and dogs both 10 minutes before playtime with their owners and then immediately after.  The results were quite different.  The average for the dogs showed an increase in oxytocin by 57.2% while the average increase for cats was just 12%. 

This means, in theory, that dogs love their owners five times more than cats do.  But don't worry, cat lovers, the 12% increase means that your cats still love you!  Just not as much as a dog would!