Abstract: Participants (N = 717) characterized their relationships with their dog and four human partners: closest kin, romantic partner, best friend, and child, using the Network of Relationships Inventory. The results showed that owners reported greater satisfaction with their dogs than with any human partner except their child. They received more Support from dogs than from any human partner except their child and experienced fewer Negative Interactions with their dogs compared to any human partner, except their best friend. Overall, the relationship with the dog provided high Companionship, opportunities for Nurturance, and minimal Negative Interactions. This may stem from the fact that the dog-human relationship features a more asymmetric power dynamic than human relationships – i.e., owners have full control over the dog’s life
Turcsán, B., Ujfalussy, D.J., Kerepesi, A. et al. Similarities and differences between dog–human and human–human relationships. Sci Rep 15, 11871 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-95515-8
Man, dog people have some really shitty relationships.
I get it though, unconditional love is something else. They will always love you while never asking questions and when they do something wrong (like rolling in shit), you can say they don’t understand (they totally do)
They will always love you while never asking questions
Because they are incapable of, I get the sentiment that dogs relationship for some people mean, but you can’t project the part of sentiment they are incapable of, on them, and be happy about it.
No, dogs can definitely hate you. If they know you’re a shit person, that opinion is formed and they won’t like you. You got to be really careful with dogs, something as little as a friendly prank or tease can really hurt their feelings and they’ll go out of their way to not be around you.
Absolutely. This isn’t anthropomophisation either. Some dogs can be vindictive, jealous, mercenary etc. Sometimes they just don’t like someone. Could be smell, could be anything.
My old dog hated dreadlocks. Can dogs be racist? Probably.
That’s all that matters when you need some support
Hell yeah!
Incapable of loving? I guess it depends how idealized is your personal concept of “love”.
no not love,I was talking about the questioning part in this case.
Hmm I don’t know, it really depends what is the meaning of “asking questions”.
This, or people are bad at Symmetric relationships and need tho be the center of attention. This article does not provide this information
Do you really think this is why people get dogs?
My dog & I both know who the centre of attention is & he won’t let me forget it.No. I just said that the article does not say why.
Cats
I say this all the time. My cat is my best friend. I also have other friends but still it’s not even close. My cat wakes me up every morning at the same time, knows my entire routine, greets me at the door when I come home and curls up with me in bed. In turn I also know her routine and I make an effort to understand and provide what she needs in terms of food, games and environmental enrichment. It’s more symbiotic than any human relationship I’ve ever had.
Hell yeah, genuinely the same over here, will straight up murder for my boy.
He’d do it for you!
Shit he murders for funsies
What a puppy cat. My last cat was like that.
Love 'em (got 2), but they’re just not quite as attached to their humans as dogs tend to be.
Cats? My cat blamed me for when she got hiccups and thought I was trying to kill her.
The strength of that relationship can vary, though, like this evening when our dog found poop in the yard and started rolling in it. Bathing the dog isn’t how we had planned to spend our Friday night!
This shit wreaks of AI slop.
*reeks
Damn, that’s what I get for not being AI smart…
Fuck I had to correct so many AI typos for this comment.
Mommy I want a real keyboard for Christmas!
Clocks*
Thought now would be a good time to pile on
Skimming through the actual article I’m assuming it’s an AI generated summary of one section, although I’m not quickly finding even what it’s pulling from
It’s clearly CoPilot, asking ChatGPT, to pull information from Grok’s ass.
Not AI. It is me. The abstract is posted on the primary source Nature. Here is the citationPost updated to included citation. Sry. Not AI. Just human error Turcsán, B., Ujfalussy, D.J., Kerepesi, A. et al. Similarities and differences between dog–human and human–human relationships. Sci Rep 15, 11871 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-95515-8
Are dogs AI?
Dogs are certainly not naturally occurring. You could say they are an artificial construct by humans. And sure, they’re intelligent enough.
Read over the paragraph again.
Look at how many times it ignorantly uses a Capital Letter in the middle of a sentence…
Shit like that is obviously AI generated…
Sorry. I should have included citation.
What AI? It is an actual study posted on Nature. I read the study on the primary source. It is the abstract. PsyPost reposts and summarises it. I should have posted the citation. SorryHere is the citation.Turcsán, B., Ujfalussy, D.J., Kerepesi, A. et al. Similarities and differences between dog–human and human–human relationships. Sci Rep 15, 11871 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-95515-8
I dearly love my kid, but I don’t think I would rely on them for support. Certainly they would be willing to at least try to provide it, but they’re a kid. Any significant support being provided should go in the opposite direction.
Point is parents don’t judge their children ( not as much) and dogs don’t judge us. We love children unconditionally (to some extent) and dogs love us unconditionally.
Our children, they love us unconditionally only until they to grow to certain age.
That’s will most people prefer dogs generally. They are exceptions. But generally it holds true.
That punctuation. “Including romantic partners, except children.” WTF?
I am much closer to my husband and kids than to the dogs and cats but feel more responsibility towards the pets, the kids I am growing into adults who take care of themselves, the dogs and cats we care for until they die.
