7 Lessons in Gratitude From Your Dog, and the Science Behind Each One
Dogs greet you harder after a long day, hold your gaze until both your brains respond and notice when an exchange turns unfair. Here is how to bring each habit into your own life.
Photo: Jamie Street / Unsplash
You get used to good things fast. The new home, the promotion and the partner who brings you coffee every morning all fade into the background within months. Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation, and every gratitude practice you have ever tried exists to fight it.
Dogs live as a daily counterexample. After at least 15,000 years beside humans, they have become animals whose behaviour looks a great deal like gratitude in action. Nobody can prove that a dog feels thankful in the way you do. Scientists can, however, measure what happens in a dog's body and brain, and in yours, when you are together. Each of the seven lessons below comes from those measurements.
1. Make every return an occasion
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