Dogs and the Left Gaze Bias

Thanks to the Towleroad blog, I found out about a new study that says "Dogs can read emotions in human faces." According to the study, humans and dogs share an instinctive behavior: "left gaze bias." Apparently when we first look at another person, our eyes automatically move left so that we look at the person's right side, which is probably because the right side of our body expresses emotions better. As it turns out, dogs are the only other creature to do this, and they only do it when they look at humans. The study suggests that because dogs have been partnered with humans for so long, they've become accustomed to "reading" our emotions the same we "read" the emotions of other people. Of course, anyone who's a dog person already knows that they can read our emotions--that's just one of the reasons why they're such amazing creatures! So in the spirit of "left gaze bias," I found this adorable, tilted-head picture of Newton, a Westie puppy, courtesy of his owner sinosplice's Flickr album.