If you have a dog, or in fact, have ever met a dog, then you’ve probably found yourself lulling into that familiar cringy, cooing baby voice…you know the one…'Ahhh, who’s a good boy then? Yes, you aaaareee. Yesss. Youuu. Arrrreeee...' Guilty? Yup, me too.
But feel guilty no more. New research, published this week in the Proceedings of The Royal Society B, suggests that puppies love it when they are spoken to in this way, responding in a much more positive manner than when spoken to normally.
Adult dogs; weeellll…they couldn’t really care less.
To conduct their study, researchers recorded 30 female volunteers repeating the following sentence:
‘"Hi! Hello cutie! Who's a good boy? Come here! Good boy! Yes! Come here sweetie pie! What a Good boy!"
In a first recording, the women spoke in a slow-paced, high-pitched voice as if addressing an animal, and then a second recording was made in their normal speaking tone, as if addressing a human. (Which – as one would predict – sounds very very weird.)
The researchers then played these recordings to ten puppies and ten adult dogs at a New York animal shelter.
The puppies went wild at the sound of the doggy-directed voices – barking, running towards the speaker and frantically wagging their tails, but were not nearly as enthused upon hearing the second recording.
The adult dogs, however, did not care at all, taking a quick glance at the speaker before carrying on doing their doggy thang.
The researchers offer two explanations for this difference: it may be down to an innate receptiveness to high-pitched sounds – a genetic trait that gradually depletes with age – meaning the older dogs genuinely can’t hear our coos.
Oooorrrr it may be that as dogs age, they become choosier of who they react to and associate with and are in fact actively ignoring us – the double blue tick and blank of the canine world.
So, I’ve decided, older dogs can get stuffed. I, for one, shall be reserving my sickly-sweet baby voice for puppies, new-borns and making my boyfriend feel sorry for me when I’m hungover.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
This Story Of True Dog Friendship Will Melt You Into A Puddle
How To Make Your Cat Famous From The Woman Who’s Already Done It
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.