10 Ways Your Dog Says I Love You

You're not imagining it. That's a look of love. When you two gaze at one another, your bodies make a chemical called oxytocin that causes the two of you to bond, says Brian Hare, author of the "The Genius of Dogs." It's the same chemical mothers and babies produce when they look at one another, Hare says. "They can make each other feel good just by staring into each others' eyes. Somehow, dogs have hijacked this process."

Dogs wag their tails for a lot of reasons, and they're not always positive. But an Italian neuroscientist and two veterinarians filmed the tail wag angles (yes, that's a thing) of dogs as they looked at their owners, a stranger, a dog they didn't know and a cat. The dogs wagged their tails to the right when they saw their owner. Everybody else got a wag to the left. So watch the wag. If it's to the right, your dog child is saying he loves you.

Again with the cameras. Japanese researchers filmed the faces of dogs when they saw their owners and when they saw a stranger. The dogs raised their eyebrows when they saw their owner. The stranger just got an ear lift, a sign of doggie caution. Why do they raise their eyebrows? So they can make better eye contact and make those good chemicals that bond the two of you.

Yawning when you see another person yawn is a sign of empathy. It's called a contagious yawn, and half of all people do it. Now researchers have found that dogs do it, too. A study found that 70 percent of dogs yawned when they watched their owner yawn. It's a sign of emotional bonding between man and dog. Whether you're bored or sleepy, your dog's on board. He feels you.