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Dogs cry with gladness when greeting their humans

Canines’ weeping makes them the first non-human animal known to shed happy tears.
Close up portrait of a dark grey standard poodle

The hormone oxytocin is probably responsible for the surge of tears to a happy dog’s eyes. Credit: Madoka Nakamura

People often cry tears of joy in the throes of emotion. A new study shows that dogs do, too: they become teary-eyed when they are reunited with their owners1.

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Nature 609, 12 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02280-z

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 22 August 2022: An earlier version of this story included the wrong page range for the reference. This has now been corrected.

References

  1. Murata, K. et al. Curr. Biol. 32, R869–R870 (2022).

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