Here I am in the garden with otto:
Posted on 03/30/2004 7:53:30 PM PST by The South Texan
Study: Purebred dogs look like owners By LEE BOWMAN, Scripps Howard News Service March 30, 2004
It might not be a traditional family resemblance, but purebred dogs really look like their owners, according to a new study.
"We were concerned some of the owners might be insulted, but most of them found it flattering that our assessments found they and their dogs looked alike," said Nicholas Christenfeld, a social psychologist at the University of California-San Diego.
Working with fellow psychologist Michael Roy, Christenfeld set up a photo-matching experiment to see if a group of college psych students could pick out which dog belonged with a human. They got it right with purebred dogs nearly two-thirds of the time, but "with mutts, they might as well have been flipping a coin," Christenfeld said.
"This is one of those things that a lot of people believe, that's portrayed in cartoons and illustrations, but hasn't been formally tested in a scientific manner," said Christenfeld, a mutt owner himself.
The researchers visited three dog parks around San Diego and photographed 45 dog owners and their pooches. The photos were taken so that the background was different in the photo of the human from the one of their dog.
Then, sets of three pictures _ a human and two possible canine companions _ were presented one by one to each of 28 student-judges. A dog was considered to resemble its owner if more than 14 of the judges matched up the pair.
That happened with 16 of 25 purebreds, but got it right in just seven of 20 mystery breeds, according to the study, which appears in the May issue of Psychological Science.
"Purebred owners pick their pet more by affinity, and even when they choose them as a puppy, they have a pretty good idea what they'll look like as an adult," Christenfeld said. "With mutts, it's more likely to be random and unpredictable. You go to the pound and pick out a cute puppy, but there's no way of knowing for sure what the puppy will look like when it grows up."
The study seems to refute one theory of dogs and owners _ that, like human mates, they come to resemble each other more over time. But dog-owner combinations that have been together for years were no more likely to be correctly paired up by the judges than those who were new to each other.
Christenfeld said the dogs that were correctly matched seemed to be based on some combination of fairly subtle physical attributes and personality, rather than more blatantly obvious traits. For instance, the matches were not made based on how hairy a dog and owner was, or big people with big dogs.
"People disagree vigorously about the relative attractiveness of different breeds of dogs; what some loathe, others love. But purebred owners pick up some little hint that the dog is similar to them, just as studies shown that we tend to pair up with people who are similar to us," Christenfeld said. "People want a relationship with a creature like themselves."
Bassett Hound.
Here I am in the garden with otto:
Okay, so according to this article, I look like a cast iron anvil (hmmm) with black and tan markings and a cropped tail, or, that my dog looks like a short, stocky little blonde broad with big feet...
Unfortunately, such is not the case. He's considerably better looking than me. Smarter, too.
BTW, that's a cute doggie in the top picture.
No, these are not mine.
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