A newfound study shockingly shows the unordinary information that human beings began breeding dogs to have their infamous puppy eyes over 33,000 years ago. Professor in the department of physical therapy at Rangos School of Health Sciences at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Anne Burrows, recently gave a public statement on the unexpected news. “Throughout the domestication process, humans may have bred dogs selectively based on facial expressions that were similar to their own… Dogs are unique from other mammals in their reciprocated bond with humans which can be demonstrated through mutual gaze, something we do not observe between humans and other domesticated mammals such as horses or cats.” Burrows claimed.
According to a previous 2019 study, dogs have a small muscle (levator anguli oculi medialis) in their face that can raise the inside of their “eyebrow”, causing the majority of that specific eye to seem puffier: “This eyebrow movement creates the ‘puppy-dog eyes’ expression, resembling facial expressions humans make when we are sad, making them irresistible and resulting in a nurturing response from humans,” laboratory manager for the Rangos School of Health Sciences department of physical therapy, Madisen Omstead stated.
She went on to continue her statement by further elaborating on the subject, “We also know that we are still unconsciously selecting these characteristics in dogs.” With this announcement, Olmstead is referring to research discovered back in 2013, in which dogs who use those specific expressions more often than not “were rehomed more quickly than less expressive dogs, reinforcing this type of evolutionary scenario even today.” Even with this information being as stunning as it is, the scientific and biological research behind the creation of the ‘puppy-dog eyes’ all seems to add up, as it comes down to the simple fact of humans and dogs having similar muscles in their faces.