As a dog lover on a dating app I keep noticing the increasing amount of dogs. As in actual dogs with wagging tails and wet noses. I’m sure it’s not just me who thinks a bit harder when swiping when they see a cute little cockerpoo next to someone that is not usually their type. I may have been guilty of swiping in the hope that I’ll get to meet said cockerpoo and form a friendship. I am also one of those who has uploaded a photo of me and my dogs, being a dog groomer, I guess it’s only natural I want to attract someone who likes dogs so therefore I present to you my dogs so you can see them and think oh yes another dog person let’s go on a date, preferably with our dogs.
UK based pet food brand Webbox, did a two week social experiment on Tinder and Bumble called ‘Pet Wingman’ to see what would happen if a pet was added to dating profiles. On average woman saw a 69% increase in matches and men saw a 38% increase in matches, showing that pets do indeed encourage us to swipe. So why do we do it? Is there a reason to why we look for someone who has a dog.
Dog people can’t be bad right? We hear horror stories about people meeting on dating apps and it goes horribly wrong but they never mention that one of them was a dog owner. We feel safe chatting to someone with a dog. In 2008, a social experiment in France tested this by having a man ask for woman’s numbers half the time with a dog and half without. The experiment showed that woman were 20% more likely to give their number when the man had a dog. Dating Scout did a study of 22 million dating profiles which showed that 80% of all pet photos on dating profiles were of dogs. The study said that ’a dog person is said to be reliable, outgoing and is able to take over the responsibility for an animal that needs a lot of attention and care.’ When we see a dog on a dating profile do subconsciously see that person as someone who is loving, neutering, caring and not scared of commitment because they look after a pet. All these attributes are desireable in a partner. Online dating coach Erika Ettain told GQ that she believes that woman will subconsciously equate how a man treats his dog to how he would treat them. Do we believe that as our potential partner has committed themselves to looking after a dog for several years of their life, they might commit to dating me!
On the other hand, I was thinking that dogs could represent what we look for in a partner, do we actually want to marry a dog! Dogs are loyal, fun, trustworthy and provide us with a lot of love and joy, I don’t know about you but that describes someone I’d be interested in as a partner. When we look at the dating photos of dogs do we see these qualities and think yes they’re the one for me.
We assume that the dog is owned by the person in the photo but what if it’s not? The Washington Post has written an article on dogfishing. This is when someone uploads a photo with a dog that’s not theres in order to attract a date. It doesn’t really attract the right attention as you can’t help and feel betrayed that the dogs not theirs, like they’re using the dog to get attention so does this mean that they’ll use you? Will your whole relationship be built on lies because Kevin the pug was actually their aunties?
Dogs give unconditional love which is something we search for in a partner. If you have a dog by all means post you and your best friend as it can attract someone who loves dogs as much as you do. If you don’t have a dog maybe think before borrowing your mates as it might backfire.
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