Most people have a type. The handsome Labrador. The beautifully marked Border Collie. The scruffy terrier with eyebrows. The elegant Whippet.
People know what catches their eye. And then sometimes they end up with a dog who looks absolutely nothing like the dog they thought they wanted. For CLEAR owner and head trainer Caroline Strainig, that dog was Blink.
Not exactly love at first sight
Caroline has owned Border Collies for many years and is used to dogs with a certain amount of presence. Lockie, in particular, comes from a long line of show and performance Border Collies. He’s a striking dog, and people regularly tell Caroline how beautiful he is.
Then she went to look at Blink. Her first thought was not, “Oh, she’s gorgeous.” It was closer to: “Do I really want this dog?”
Blink was a wiry, rather nondescript little black Koolie with a small grey merle patch on her chest. She didn’t have much presence. If Caroline had been choosing a dog on looks alone, Blink probably wouldn’t have made the shortlist.
Fortunately, looks weren’t the priority. Caroline wanted a fun dog for flyball — something light, fast and athletic. Flyball is physically demanding, and she didn’t particularly want a heavier Border Collie pounding up and down the lane. She was recruiting an athlete, not judging a beauty contest. On that basis, Blink looked considerably more interesting.
But here’s the funny thing
Blink hasn’t become any more glamorous. She’s still the same wiry little black dog with the same small splash of merle on her chest. But Caroline no longer sees her the way she did when they first met. Somewhere along the way, this rather ordinary-looking little dog started looking rather gorgeous.
Which raises an interesting question: does a dog actually start looking different once it becomes someone’s dog? It turns out there may be something in that.
People aren’t as objective as they think
Scientists have long been interested in what humans find cute. One area of research involves something called baby schema: features such as relatively large eyes and a more infant-like face. Researchers have manipulated photographs of people, dogs and cats to increase or decrease those features and found that the more baby-like versions were generally perceived as cuter.
So even something as apparently simple as “that’s a cute dog” is partly influenced by the way the brain responds to particular visual cues.
Another study is especially interesting for dog owners. Researchers used eye tracking to compare how experienced dog owners and people without dogs looked at dogs’ faces while deciding how approachable they appeared. The two groups didn’t look at them in quite the same way. Dog owners made their judgements with fewer fixations and in less time, and experience with dogs was also associated with differences in where people looked, including greater attention to the eyes.
In other words, experience with dogs can change the way people actually look at them.
And then a dog becomes your dog
The science doesn’t suggest that loving a dog magically makes it more beautiful. But it does suggest that seeing isn’t entirely objective. Experience, familiarity and association all influence what the brain makes of what is in front of it.
That may be enough to explain Blink. These days, Caroline looks at her and smiles. She might give her a stroke or look into her eyes without thinking about whether Blink is beautiful, ordinary, wiry, black or anything else she noticed when they first met.
She’s simply Blink, and she’s Caroline’s dog.
