How many times have you been told that your dog looks like you?  Well, science has proven that dogs actually resemble their owners. 

Sadahiko Nakajima, a researcher at Japan’s Kwansei Gakuin University, explains that there’s actual proof that supports the notion that dog owners and their beloved pets look alike.  Further, his findings have shown why such a resemblance exists.

Nakajima conducted an experiment in 2009 which confirmed that people were able to match dogs and their owners just by looking at their photographs.

The results were not a surprise, since many previous studies came to similar conclusions.

The researcher wanted to go further and understand why humans and their pets look alike.  He conducted another experiment in order to determine if the dog-human resemblance could be traced to a specific facial feature.

Nakajima was fascinated by the results.

In his paper, the researcher concluded that the findings “clearly show that individuals make decisions on dog-owner resemblance primarily by comparing features of the eye region between dogs and owners.”

The only question that remains is why people end up looking like their dogs?  Nakajima gave a simple explanation to Huff Post.

‘A major reason of the dog-owner facial resemblance is the so-called ‘mere exposure effect.’

In short, people choose pets that are similar to them because of a preference for the familiar.