This ability of adorable animals to bring out our maternal or paternal instincts goes some way to explaining why some see pets as pseudo children. Their large eyes and heads that seem slightly too big for their bodies reportedly triggers kindchenschema, which is why so many of us see a pup and find ourselves suddenly wanting to care for and nurture it.”
“Research has shown that puppies have similar effects on us. He believed that when we see certain infantile characteristics, an innate desire to take care of that infant is activated,” adds Dr Mort. “In 1943, the Nobel prize-winning zoologist Konrad Lorenz put forward the idea of kindchenschema. More than that, some experts believe our desire to look after cute animals is innate.
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“ Research has also shown that if you look into a dog’s eyes, this positive effect is compounded by the release of oxytocin, the love hormone,” explains psychologist Dr Soph Mort, author of How To Be Human. A study from Washington State University discovered that stroking a dog for 10 minutes can decrease your heart rate and blood pressure and cause your muscles to relax. If you’ve noticed that interacting with a dog perks up your day, you’re also not imagining it. “Even on the grimmest, darkest days he never fails to make me laugh, and the time I’m out and about with him is when I stop looking at my phone and just take in my environment. “He’s helped us prioritise what’s important and keeps us grounded,” she says. But Milhouse enforced some much-needed work-life balance, too. The main reason for getting a puppy, she explains, was to give her partner, an NHS doctor on the frontline, a boost after a long shift. Cooped up and craving companionship, a four-legged friend offered homebound workers comfort and distraction as well as an excuse to go out for a daily walk, something 30-year-old Erin discovered with the arrival of her sausage dog Milhouse in March. If you’re among the millions of people who suddenly found themselves working from home in March 2020, it’s not hard to see why the pandemic sparked a surge in pet ownership. There is even a newly opened private members’ club for dogs in south-west London called WagWorks – and there’s already a waitlist, of course. It’s little surprise, then, that the market for pampering pooches is booming: take Dandie Dog Café in north London, which opened its doors at the end of last year to provide everything from shepherd’s pie cupcakes to bespoke yoga classes for its four-legged visitors, or luxury daycare centre Urban Mutts, with its puppy social club and spa facilities. Where we once tutted at 00s paparazzi shots of Paris Hilton and her pampered chihuahua Tinkerbell hanging out of a Louis Vuitton bag, today you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a photograph of a dog in a baby grow on your Instagram feed or a friend’s announcement that she’s a “dog mum” now. Take a quick scan of social media, and you’ll notice that it’s also this generation behind the increasing “baby-fication” of our pets. I have a latte and she has a puppuccino.” For the uninitiated, that’s whipped cream served to spoilt dogs in a coffee cup. “The staff fetch Coco a blanket and give her toys. They do everything together, including frequenting their local coffee shop.
“She’s our little fur baby and we adore her,” Holly says. Her “mummy” is 36-year-old Holly, a writer who lives with her husband in London and brought Coco home in March 2020. The star in question is Coco, aka a pup with an enviable wardrobe and thousands of followers. It’s captioned ‘They see me strolling’, and it’s seriously adorable. The one that holds my attention the most, however, is a gallery of the dog rolling through the park in a pushchair like an actual baby. It poses with a pink-frosted birthday cake – presumably, its own – and frolics in a paddling pool.
There are shots of it swaddled in blankets and being pushed on a swing. It’s an ordinary Wednesday night and I’m scrolling through Instagram, looking at photos of a glossy-haired cavalier King Charles spaniel.