Does Your Pet Love You For You Or The Food You're Giving It?

It's no secret that we humans feel a strong connection to our furry friends.

Anyone who has ever owned a pet knows that we humans have the capacity for the kind of unconditional love that is otherwise rarely seen between humans.

We absolutely love our pets. But lately, seeing my dog Coco's rude behaviour and never-ending tantrums has forced me to ask this question: do our pets love us back or is it food that's keeping them with us?

Is this another one-sided relationship that we have fostered in our lives?

Well, it clearly doesn't hurt to look around and the following is what I came up with.

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First and foremost, we need definitions. It's funny how we have over 15 words to describe something bad (think unpleasant, nasty, evil, sinful etc etc) yet the most dramatic and powerful human emotion that motivates billions of people to do extraordinary things for each other has all been loosely labelled 'love'. So to answer my question of whether our pets love us back we first need to decide which definition of love are we holding sacred.

Here’s one dictionary definition of love which accurately describes the relationship most pet owners share with their pets: profoundly tender demeanour, joy in presence of another, offering expressions of affection or adoration for another, dedicated and devoted.

If we abide by this definition then it won't come as a surprise to most people that dogs, more than any other pet, exhibit and reciprocate this love for us. Dogs are supremely tender.

When we come home after a really long day, they come running to us and greet us in the most affectionate way. Plus they are always finding ways to shower us with love whether it's in the form of licking our faces wet or cutely asking us for belly rubs.

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The best part? Science confirms our feelings. Plenty of studies prove that most dogs actively choose to be close to humans, and, within a few months of being born, a puppy’s attraction is clearly toward people rather than other dogs.

This is because dogs, just like us, release oxytocin, also known as the 'love hormone' when they are in contact with their owners. Dogs also show varying degrees of anxiety when their humans temporarily leave them. So when it comes to dogs, we can, without a shadow of doubt, prove the fact that we love them and they, in turn, love us back too.

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Let's now direct our attention to the more complicated species in the pet community: cats. A small-scale study carried out by a neuroscientist in the United Kingdom shows that cats also release oxytocin when they are petted by their owners. But in comparison to dogs it's only one-fifth.

But won't cat owners agree to this? When it comes to showing love, cats display less love but there's plenty of proof that they too feel love for their owners. So complicated but so lovely.

While it's comforting to know that our pets love us back, I can't help but say this: it would be absolutely okay even if they didn't love us back or if we didn't have a way to test it.

There have been ample of times when Coco sleeps on my bed in a way that's really uncomfortable but I don't have the heart to break his sleep, so I accommodate. There have been times when Coco doesn't eat and I am automatically not hungry too. I really don't think there is a definition for a love like that especially when it's all coming from me.

It's the kind of love that's hard to put in words because for Coco, I would fight the world and be absolutely okay even if he loved me for the piece of chicken in my hand.

It's the type of love that can only be felt and not framed in a sentence, and thank god for that.