Ben Rine

capacity but is actually something that's pretty widespread throughout the animal kingdom which i can't help but notice that you know the biology when it comes to exist in the form of intelligent life is inherently nice we are in these animals and us we are in we are nice to each other we care about each other uh and

I think that's a valuable reminder that our base is to be kind and to love.

And then a lot of the time what happens is in society we overlay all these factors of division that cause us to kind of forget those basic impulses.

Oh, it's literally the connection with the dog, actually.

So when a dog and their caregiver look into each other's eyes, both the dog and the caregiver show a rise in oxytocin, which is the love hormone.

And oxytocin is what drives us to bind to others.

It is what makes us feel good around each other.

So when you're a romantic partner, you just want to be around them all the time, especially in those early stages.

That's because there's a ton of oxytocin flowing.

It's that social glue.

So when you look into the eyes of your dog, you experience that same thing.

And so does the dog, by the way, as I mentioned, which is great, suggests that dogs actually love us.

There's really a true healing social property inherent to those interactions with our dogs.

And actually, there's other studies too showing that hanging out with the dog, not even your dog, just a dog,

lowers heart rate, you know, lowers blood pressure, drives up things like endorphins, dopamine.

Our biology is just wired in a way that we benefit from being around dogs.

And I can't help but look through an evolutionary lens at a lot of this stuff.

And in this case, it makes a lot of sense because just like humans exist really well in groups.

And so we are

wired to want to be around each other, humans and dogs have existed together for 30,000 to 40,000 years.