Source (original paper)
Bombail V, et al. (2022). Bonded by nature: Humans form equally strong and reciprocated bonds with similarly raised dogs and wolves. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1044940
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. You may share, reuse, and distribute it if you give appropriate credit.
1. Why did they do this research?
Dogs have long lived with humans and have an image of "bonding well with people." Wolves are often seen as "wild," and we might assume they do not form as strong a bond with humans as dogs. But what if we compare dogs and wolves raised in the same way by humans? Would the strength of the bond differ, or could wolves also form a similar bond if raised similarly?
The researchers compared hand-raised dogs and wolves: how strong the human felt the bond was, how much the animal showed attachment and closeness to the person, and whether the bond was reciprocal. They wanted to see whether the bond was strong "because it's a dog" or "because they were raised close to humans from an early age."
2. How was the study done?
All dogs and wolves in the study were raised in the same facility, by the same principles, by humans from weaning onward. Food, play, and contact were kept as similar as possible so that "how they were raised" would affect the result less. The team measured (1) how strongly the human felt the bond (survey) and (2) how closely the animal responded to that person (e.g. seeking them, staying near them) by observing behavior. They also checked whether "human-reported bond" and "animal bond behavior" matched (reciprocity).
3. What did they find?
When raised in the same way, dogs and wolves did not differ clearly in bond strength. Both the human's bond score and the animal's closeness behavior were predicted better by "hand-raised or not" than by species (dog vs wolf). So experience with humans from an early age played a big role—the result was closer to "bond is strong because we grew up together" than "because it's a dog." When they looked at reciprocity, the stronger the human felt the bond, the more the animal tended to respond with closeness; this pattern was similar in both dogs and wolves. So shared upbringing and mutual responsiveness may matter more for the bond than species alone.
4. What this study does not say
It does not say "wolves can bond with humans as much as dogs in any situation." The comparison was in a research setting with the same raising conditions; we cannot directly apply it to typical pet dogs or wolves in the wild. The number of animals was limited. But it does show that when raised in the same way, dogs and wolves can show a similar level of bond with humans.
5. What we can take away
Most dogs we meet in daily life have "grown up with humans," and that experience likely plays a big part in their "bonding with people." So it is not only "being a dog" that makes the bond—how they were raised and what experiences were shared can shape the strength and form of the bond. The time and responses we share with our dog every day can be read as building the bond. The bond is not given by one side only; it is built together by human and animal. This study illustrates that by comparing dogs and wolves.
In a nutshell
Similarly hand-raised dogs and wolves did not differ clearly in bond strength with humans; "hand-raised or not" predicted the bond better than species. The bond was reciprocal, and the pattern was similar in both. So it was not "because it's a dog" that the bond was special—shared upbringing and mutual responsiveness played a large role. This study shows that.
Source (CC BY 4.0)
Bombail V, et al. (2022). Bonded by nature: Humans form equally strong and reciprocated bonds with similarly raised dogs and wolves. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1044940
© 2022 The Authors. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).