Do you love your dog? Of course you do. Are you in love with your dog? Of course you are, and a new study has just come out that proves it. It turns out that love is chemically apparent following an interaction between dogs and their owners.

The study was undertaken by Japanese researchers and published in the journal Science. It’s made up of two parts.

The first part of the study included researches letting dog owners and their dogs hang out for about half an hour. After this was over, researchers measured oxytocin levels in both the dogs and their humans. What’s oxytocin? It’s an incredibly important hormone, ofter referred to as the “love hormone” or the “bonding hormone.” It’s a fundamental aspect of intimacy and is released during sex. It allows couples to bond.

What’s interesting is that researches found that in cases where dogs and their owners stared at them the longest, this usually correlated with higher levels of oxytocin. Also, an interesting thing is that if oxytocin levels were high in the human, they were high in the dogs as well.

The researchers also had a control group. It consisted of a group of wolves raised by humans. However, no oxytocin activity was noticed in these cases.

In another aspect of the study, researchers tried to figure out whether high oxytocin levels were actually causing these prolonged stares between humans and their pooches. Researchers manipulated oxytocin levels by injecting dogs with a synthetic form of the hormone. Now this will really blow your mind. Apparently, synthetic oxytocin caused much higher levels of the hormone in both humans and female dogs. However, this was not the case in male dogs.

So, what does this all mean? Well, basically, bonding was a super beneficial evolutionary thing that dogs learned when they became domesticated. Kinda cheapens love doesn’t it.