They say you can learn a lot about people by the way they treat their pets. According to stereotypes, If you own a dog, you’re friendly, conscientious, and extremely extroverted. While these generalizations don’t hold much water in reality, the way that you interact with your pets can actually tell you a lot about yourself. It can also tell you a lot about how you engage with the people around you, which, in turn, can help you navigate successful relationships.
To understand these relationships, you first need to know the five traits that are used to describe human personality: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and Neuroticism . Based on these five traits, a person’s personality resides somewhere on each of these spectra. For openness, you are either inventive/curious or consistent/cautious. For conscientiousness, you are either efficient/organized or easy-going/careless. For extroversion, you are either outgoing/energetic or solitary/reserved. For agreeableness you are either friendly/compassionate or cold/unkind. And for neuroticism, you are either sensitive/nervous or secure/confident. All human beings relate to themselves and the world around them based on these five domains. For a lot of people, objectively identifying yourself on these scales can be difficult, which is why understanding how you interact with your pet is a great place to start “researching.” Puppies show their affection toward other dogs—and even cats or other pets—by sleeping together. They also lick and nuzzle each other.
Simply sharing space can be a subtle sign of affection between dogs. Affectionate dogs also may share toys or food. They often enjoy playing together, invite games and take turns being “it” during chase and tag. Pupppies show love to people in many of the same ways.