Trust, Loyalty, and a Story About a Dog...

I came across a great quote the other day.  The author was listed as "unknown" (and I haven't been able to find another reference about the quote's origin).  The unknown author simply asked, "Do you know why the universe didn't allow our dogs to speak?  To teach us that love and loyalty come from actions and not words."

It's true - dogs are incredibly loyal, and they are perhaps the textbook example of unconditional love.  I will admit that I am a dog lover, but I see unconditional loyalty, love, devotion, and trust every time that I look into the eyes of our two dogs at home.  But if you want real proof from someone else, just read about the story of the Japanese dog, Hachiko, which I wrote about in a post last March, "Dogs Really Are Our Best Friends".  

Hachiko was a Japanese Akita dog who lived in Tokyo during the 1920's with his owner, Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at Tokyo University.  Hachiko would meet Professor Ueno every single day at the Shibuya train station when he returned home from work.  Sadly, Ueno died of an acute brain hemorrhage while at work.  Hachiko waited for him at the end of the day, just as he had always done, only this time Ueno never returned.  Hachiko would return every single day to wait for his owner for the next 10 years until his death on March 8, 1935.  Hachiko became a national symbol of trust, loyalty, and friendship in Japan.  There are statues of Hachiko at Tokyo University (the statue with Ueno on the right) and outside of the Shibuya train station (the statue on the left).  

Hachiko's story was the basis for a 2009 movie starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen called Hachi: A Dog's Tale (a real tear-jerker!).  The 2009 movie took place in Rhode Island, not Japan, and there is now a statue honoring Hachiko there too (see below)!

One is tempted to ask, why are dogs such loyal companions?  Why can't humans be as loyal as dogs?  What is the secret to their unconditional loyalty and love.  Some scientists would suggest that it's just a part of their pack mentality, and they are being loyal to the other members of their pack.  The less romantic ones among us would simply claim that we feed and take care of our dogs, so their loyalty is just payback for what we give them.  If that were true, we should be saying that cats are just as loyal as dogs.  I'm not sure that we can say that cats show us unconditional loyalty and love (while I am speaking from personal experience, I did find one study suggesting that dogs are more loyal than cats). 

Paul Zak studies the neuroscience of trust (see his excellent article in Harvard Business Review from 2017, "The Neuroscience of Trust").  Zak also wrote about his research on trust in a book that I recently read, Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies.  His research found that what we call trust has a chemical basis.  In his research, Zak has found that oxytocin mediates trust between humans (see "Oxytocin is associated with human trustworthiness").  Moreover, when we show empathy and kindness towards strangers, the levels of oxytocin in our bloodstream increases, which results in even greater generosity towards others (see "Empathy towards strangers triggers oxytocin release").  Even more important, when Zak administered oxytocin to his research subjects, they were more generous (see "Oxytocin increases generosity in humans") and more trustworthy (see "Oxytocin increases trust in humans").

Oxytocin is a hormone that is released by the pituitary gland that plays a key role in social bonding, reproduction, and emotional regulation.  The maternal-infant bond is mediated, in part, by oxytocin.  Similarly, the emotional bond between humans and dogs is also mediated, again in part, by oxytocin (see "How dogs stole our hearts" and "Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds").  As a result, oxytocin has been called the love hormone, the cuddle hormone, and the trust hormone.

Could differences in the trust hormone explain why dogs are more loyal than cats?  Some of Paul Zak's unpublished research suggests that this could be the case (see his article "Dogs (and Cats) Can Love" in The Atlantic magazine).  I bet that Hachiko's and Ueno's oxytocin levels were through the roof!

Hachiko's story is one that should warm even the coldest hearts.  We now know that our canine companions' trust, loyalty, and unconditional love has a neurochemical basis.  We now know that there's a hormone that can mediate trust.  Stay tuned for more on the neuroscience of trust in a future post.