Locking eyes with dogs makes you feel love, per science

There’s a reason you can’t resist feeding table scraps to your puppy. According to a new study, looking into your dogs eyes triggers a similar hormonal reaction to looking into those of your newborn.

According to Science, animal behaviorist Takefumi Kikusi analyzed the urine of 30 pets and owners before and after the pair interacted for half an hour. Kikusi and his team found that the samples taken from animals that locked eyes with their humans showed a 130 percent jump in levels of oxytocin, also known as the “love” hormone. Humans experienced an even greater increase—300 percent. Similar experiments showed similar results.

Science is using the new research’s publication as an opportunity to invite dog owners to submit photos of their pups looking up, adorably, with the #upwardfacingdog. Not a herculean task, but one with wonderful results. The owner of the winningest dogs gets some swag and some prizes, but we get to squeal collectively at the submissions. Here are some of our favorites:

https://twitter.com/CrazyEna/status/588800259561783296

Thanks science.

Danielle Wiener-Bronner is a news reporter.