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Yes, this is the news we need.

It is pretty obvious that dogs get wildly excited to see their humans again after time spent apart.

Some dogs get the zoomies, others lose control of their tails, and then there are those than even pee a little.

But many of them, it turns out, cry actual tears of joy when their owners come home at the end of the day. Cue the chorus of heart-warming “awwws”.

That’s according to new research from Japanese scientists which suggests dogs release “happy tears” when their owners come home after a period of absence.

Scientists who weren’t part of the study aren’t sure this conclusion is justified but did back up many of the other findings from the same study.

It’s well-known that dogs release tears as an eye-cleaning mechanism, but it is the first time that a study has linked emotion to the release of tears in any non-human animal.

CNN has more:

Takefumi Kikusui, a professor at the Laboratory of Human-Animal Interaction and Reciprocity at Azabu University in Japan, decided to investigate dog tears after watching one of his two standard poodles when she had puppies six years ago. He noticed that her eyes got teary as she nursed her puppies.

“We found that dogs shed tears associated with positive emotions,” Kikusui, who coauthored the research that published Monday in the journal Current Biology, said in a news release.

“We also made the discovery of oxytocin as a possible mechanism underlying it,” Kikusui said, referring to the hormone that in humans is sometimes called the love or maternal hormone.

The animal behaviour scientists tested the tears of 22 dogs by dabbing their eyes with paper, first while the owner was at home, and then later when the owner returned after a couple of hours, to compare the release of tears.

It turns out, that for our pups, absence also makes the heart grow fonder, with the volume of tears being greater when the owners returned home after a few hours.

The Telegraph notes that dogs’ ability to shed a tear in this way is a testament to the uniquely close human-dog relationship fostered over millennia of cohabitation, per the study:

“Unlike any other animal, dogs have evolved or have been domesticated through communication with humans and have gained high-level communication abilities with humans using eye contact.

“Through this process, their tears might play a role in eliciting protective behaviour or nurturing behaviour from their owners, resulting in the deepening of mutual relationships and leading to interspecies bonding.”

The study found that the tears were mostly released for the actual owner, and less so for the other humans coming in and out of the home.

Overall, as Dr Anna Machin, an anthropologist from Oxford University, says, “the evidence is showing more and more, particularly with dogs, that the relationship [dogs] have with their human is by any definition, a loving relationship”.

Going forward, the researchers hope to find out if dogs release the same tears of joy when reunited with other dogs, and if they also cry due to sadness.

My heart is thawing.

[sources:telegraph&cnn]