YOUR DOG LOVES YOUR SMILE ALMOST AS MUCH AS A TREAT 🐶❤️

If you've always suspected your dog can tell when you're happy, science has some good news:

Your dog really IS reading your face.

Researchers used brain scans while showing dogs photos of unfamiliar people making different facial expressions, including happy, sad, angry, and fearful faces.

And when the dogs saw someone smiling, something pretty adorable happened.

It activated an area of their brain associated with rewards.

RELATED: Study Says Female Dogs Might Be Judging You... And Honestly, That Tracks 🐶😂

Basically, your smiling face may light up your dog's brain in a similar reward-related way to something they really enjoy.

Which means every time you smile at your dog, they're potentially thinking:

“Excellent. The human is pleased. Perhaps cheese is coming.”

What's especially interesting is that the dogs responded positively to happy faces even when they didn't recognize the person.

Dogs don't just love their humans being happy. They like happy humans in general.

Meanwhile, cats see you smiling and think: “Embarrassing.”

Now, the study mostly involved border collies, so researchers say more work is needed to determine whether other breeds respond the same way. Border collies are basically the gifted kids of the dog world.

Try this experiment with a golden retriever, and the brain scan might just say:

FOOD. BALL. FOOD. BALL. FRIEND? FOOD.

But the takeaway is pretty sweet. The next time you see a dog, give them a smile.

It may genuinely make them feel good.

And considering our dogs spend their lives giving us emotional support...

It's nice to know we can return the favour without even opening the treat cupboard.