Have you ever been speaking to somebody and noticed that they blink right after you blink, or vice versa? This brief exchange of blinking is thought to help humans and other primates bond. We know, too, that cats use a slow blink to communicate feelings of trust and safety.
And now it appears as though dogs might use blinking to help strengthen bonds as well, between getting the zoomies and hunting for the best dog treats, according to a new study published in Royal Society Open Science.
Martina Francesconi, an ethologist at the University of Pisa who wasn’t involved in the study herself, explained, per Science, “The idea that individual dogs can synchronize with each other in such a subtle and hardly perceptible way raises fascinating questions about how they communicate. They might be more in tune with one another than we realized.”
We already know that domestic dogs seem to blink more around other dogs and use blinking to help keep things calm when tensions might arise with other dogs or even humans. Dogs sometimes also yawn and display facial expressions that look playful when other pups do the same, something known as facial mimicry.
Chiara Canori, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Parma who was involved in some of these prior studies, wanted to find out whether blinking was also part of a dog’s facial mimicry, so created short videos of dogs in which they look at the camera while focusing on a toy or treat behind it.
In some of the video clips, the dogs are blinking, while in others they aren’t. In a third category of videos, the dogs are licking their noses, something that can signify frustration or eagerness. Canori and her colleagues put the videos together into 71-second clips, and showed them in random order to 54 adult pet dogs of various breeds.
The dogs wore heart monitors to help the team assess their emotional reactions, while the pups were also filmed so they could watch out for body language like blinking. While some of the dogs fell asleep, the rest blinked around 16% more on average when watching a dog blinking than during the other clips. Meanwhile, no signs of stress in their faces or heart rates were detected.
Canori explains that future studies are needed to find out whether the participants’ blinks were synchronized with the blinks on screen, and if so, how quickly they responded. However, the increase in frequency does suggest that the dogs are mimicking their on-screen counterparts.
It’s important to note, too, that the blinking is a reflex and the dogs likely aren’t aware that they’re doing it – it’s probably just something they’ve evolved over time to help them manage social situations.
If you’re hoping to strengthen your pup’s bond with you, why not try these 32 ways to improve your relationship with your dog? You might find this list of the things your pet is trying to tell you useful, too.
