Why People Love Talking to Their Dogs

1 Overview

Just talking to yourself?

Canine behaviorists found this non-stop, dog-as-person chatting mirrors how humans talk to babies – called ‘infant-directed speech.’

Dr. Katie Slocombe of the University of York found this speech is human instinct, helping adults bond with babies and teach language. Years on, the dog’s role at home has changed, and so has how we treat them.

‘Dog-directed speech’ and baby talk share much: high pitch and excited words.

In Dr. Slocombe’s tests, dogs grew clearly more excited at a high pitch and reacted differently to different words. If you’ve always talked to your dog, it really can read your thoughts and mood from your tone.

Baby talk works the same: children feel our emotions in our tone and learn from it. Behaviorally, both are attachment behaviors that encourage the other to communicate with us.

Psychologically, dog-directed speech also lights up our brain’s ‘reward center,’ releasing dopamine and oxytocin – the chemicals behind our most basic instinct: to love and be loved.

Dopamine and oxytocin boost happiness, ease stress, even lower blood pressure – surprising, right? Talking to your dog makes it happy and helps you too.

New research: dogs prefer the person who talks to them, and show great interest in everyone speaking to them at once. From our side, the brain treats eye contact with a dog the same as with a human.

In other words, talk to a chicken and others think you’re odd – and you’d feel silly too, because your brain decides a chicken isn’t worth directed speech.