According to research carried about out by Nicholas Christenfeld and Michael Roy from the University of California, dogs and their owners often have a tendency to look alike (minus the furry muzzle and walking on all fours – as far as we know, at least. There are always exceptions).The full study appears in ‘Do Dogs Resemble Their Owners’ in the journal Psychological Science. The catch here is that it is only purebred dogs that seem to resemble their owners.

Now, after a quick whip around the adflyer office for desired breed of dog to own, we’ve heard ‘husky‘, ‘belgian shepherd‘ and ‘daschund‘. Does that give you a decent picture of the type of people we have working here? Do you think any of us would share the looks and personality of each of those dogs? Does ‘husky’ bring to mind a silver haired individual with bright blue eyes and an excitable personality? Does ‘Belgian shepherd’ make you think about striking locks and a loyal, calm temperament? Does ‘daschund’ conjure the image of a short, stout person with black hair and chocolate brown eyes, always walking quickly?

Christenfeld and Roy’s study involved a number of volunteers being shown a selection of photographs; half of dogs, the other half of their owners. There was a mixture of purebred pedigrees and cross breeds amongst the dog photographs. 16 of the 25 purebred photos were correctly matched purely based on physical resemblance. This was theorised to be due to the owner subconsciously choosing a puppy that closely resembles themselves, rather than the dog eventually growing to look similar to their owner. The look of a pedigree puppy is much easier to determine than that of a cross-bred dog, eliminating the possibility of cross breeds resembling their owners and explaining why they don’t share this unusual symmetry.

Safe to say, the study didn’t go into great levels of details and no conclusion was reached about whether people naturally prefer a dog that shares their personality traits or looks. Either way, from now on we’re probably going to be closely observing owners and pets from now on just to determine how true the study results are.

Is it only dogs that resemble their owners though? Maybe you have a pet cat, pet rabbit or pet rat-like friend or relative… We wouldn’t mind seeing pictures!