Pawrenting: Your family dog apes your children: study

A study done recently has shown an interesting relationship between a pet and its owners’ children. It revealed that dogs move in sync with the children than other family members. The study found out that a family dog apes their movements with those of the children they live with.
The study titled Dog–human behavioural synchronization: Family dogs synchronize their behaviour with child family members published in February 2021 by Oregon State University showed that a pet dog moved when the accompanying child moved and remained still when the child stopped moving.
This shows the emotional bond that a child and pets have and show how children and dogs learn to read each other’s body language. It also points to how the relationship between the two affects the emotional development of children brought up with pets.

Emotional support

This research cements the growing evidence that shows that dogs help children in many ways, including with social development, increasing physical activity, managing anxiety or as a source of attachment when faced with changing family structures.
According to the study, a family pet might help a toddler move more and offer emotional support to the child.
This phenomenon is not new to adults. Those with pets know that often a dog will follow and repeat their actions to a huge degree. 
For example, a dog will walk when their owners walk and are still when they stop walking. 
Dogs pay a lot of attention to the children they live with. 

How the research was done

The researchers picked different dogs, untrained dogs that are just pets and put them in a warehouse-like space. They then took children, most of whom had a developmental disability, to study with their family dog. The children were then asked to follow pathways marked with tapes, pausing at times, without touching or talking to the dogs.
They found out that 60 per cent of the time, the dogs stayed close to their young owners, walking and stopping in tune.
“The dogs were paying attention and adjusting their behaviour,” says the lead author of the study Monique Udell.
This study also shows that families with pets might want to have the young children spend more time working, walking, feeding, and playing with their pets; they are more capable of training the pets more than they get credit for.

***
Maryanne is a pet owner. [email protected]