Dogs as Date Bait: Why It Works

The traditional methods of meeting a potential love interest just don’t work very well. Meet someone at a bar? I’m more likely to orchestrate an intervention than ask for the guy’s phone number.Find romance at work? Can you spell sexual harassment lawsuit?You can’t be seriously looking for love at the grocery store. Comeon! If you see someone suggestively caressing the melons, your firstthought isn’t, “Now that’s a normal, functioning adult.” One book I read suggested that singles hang out at banks, since employed people go there to make deposits. But it seems the employed person you’d meet would likely be a police officer or FBI agent during what could be a rigorous and ugly interrogation.

Happily, the answer to the problem is probably lying at your feet right now. Yes, once again, you’ll find that a dog really is man’s (and woman’s) best friend. Your dog is ideal date bait.

Scientific studies have proven it: You’re three times more likely to have someone stop and talk if you have a dog with you. Psychologists tell us that people with dogs are perceived as friendlier, more approachable and just plain nicer than those without canine accomplices.

If you’re a dog owner, you know the drill: Walk someplace alone andyou’re ignored. Walk the same route with your pooch by your side and people will stop and talk. And they aren’t just talking to the dog—they’re making eye contact and talking to you. If you play your cards right, your pooch really can lead you to smooch.

There are several reasons why this happens:

- Humans are hardwired to love puppies. We find baby mammals of almost all kinds appealing—and puppies fill the bill in spades. Baby mammals have round heads, large eyes and soft features, and we’re biologically driven to look at them, touch them and care for them, just as we are a human baby.

- “Infantile features have such a strong effect on us that just looking at a pup can change the balance of hormones in your body,” writes Patricia McConnell Ph.D., a dog behaviorist and ethologist (a person who studies animal behavior as the interaction
of evolution, genetics, learning and environment) in her book The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs.

- Some breeds have the soft, sweet looks of puppies even as adults: from Chihuahuas to Cocker Spaniels to Saint Bernards, we’ve bred dogs that retain the round head, large, luminous eyes and curvy body of a puppy throughout their lives. And we respond with our hormones

- When people stop to pet your puppy—or your puppy-like adult dog—they experience a feeling of maternal or paternal instinct and softness that carries all the way to the human who’s with the dog.

- Dogs give us permission to talk. “It’s like when people wear a T-shirt that says something funny—they’re inviting people to look at them,” But walking your dog does something more for you than any T-shirt could. While a funny phrase on a shirt might
make people laugh, it’s just a shirt. You and your dog are a pair, a team. “It gives the message that you’re capable of some kind of caring and nurturing,” Of course, it doesn’t work to buy a dog just to impress potential dates. Most of what makes us attractive is the loving, nurturing, caring relationship we have with our pets, and
you can’t fake that.

- Dogs allow us into intimate space. Although our personal space requirements vary by culture, all human societies have very clear (although unspoken) rules about how close you can be to another person without being rude. For example, in the United States anyone who comes within eight to 12 inches of your body is in your “highly personal” space. This space is seldom entered in public, and is usually reserved for our lovers, children and close family. Twelve to 36 inches is the space we usually reserve for good friends, and most business transactions and social conversations
take place four and a half to five feet away.

- Think what happens when you walk your dog. When people stop to pet your dog, they are often only inches away and may even touch you. They’ve waltzed right into your personal space. Your body is already treating this person as a close friend. I used to live in a condominium along the riverfront of downtown Portland, Oregon. It’s an area that has lots of restaurants, small shops and upscale bars—a popular first-date
place. When I’d take my little six-pound Papillon out for walks, it was easy to spot people who were on their first date and liking each other—but not quite ready to touch.

- Maybe some of it’s just plain magic. One study followed a woman walking a Labrador Retriever. Three times as many people stopped and talked with her when she was walking her dog than when she was alone. Several studies have documented the ability of a dog to break social barriers. These studies followed children who were disfigured by accident or disease. When the children were accompanied by a dog, everything changed. Instead of being isolated, people of all ages stopped and talked with the children. “It’s usually threatening to talk to a person in a wheelchair, or any stranger. The dog makes the person seem less threatening.” Whether you’ve got a serious disability or just feel a little insecure, your dog will break down the barriers you could never crack on your own.

- We have literally evolved together. The magic of our relationship with dogs is lost in the mists of our earliest history.