Dogs blink more when they see their owners blink, study suggests

Have you ever spotted your dog watching you carefully? Well, it turns out they might be paying closer attention than you realise.

A new study has found that dogs blink more often when they see their owners blink.

Scientists showed a group of different dogs videos of people looking at them - some of whom blinked, while others kept their faces still.

Experts found that the dogs blinked more when they saw their owners do the same, but not when they watched people they had never met before.

Experts at the University of Parma in Italy decided to take a closer look at whether dogs respond to human blinking.

Researchers showed 35 dogs of different breeds a series of videos featuring people looking at them - some of whom were blinking, while others kept a still facial expression.

The people were either the dogs' owners or strangers, allowing researchers to compare how each animal reacted between the two groups.

The results showed that the dogs blinked more often when they watched their owners blink.

However, this did not happen when they observed strangers blinking.

Scientists say that the results suggest that the dogs' reactions may depend on who they are interacting with.

They added that it doesn't mean that dogs are deliberately using blinking to send a particular message.

Instead, the team suggests that dogs are sensitive to human blinking and could blink differently depending on who they are looking at.

They believe the study also indicates that communication between people and dogs is more complex than we might realise.