How Your Pet Can Influence Your Love Life
Men with adopted dogs, take note: A survey of pet owners reveals animals can influence who you date.
The saying "love me, love my dog" may have some basis in reality: A new study suggests that pets can influence how we perceive potential dates.
That’s why Saturday’s Weird Animal Question of the Week is taking the author’s prerogative to ask: "Could your pet decide your future mate?"
Pets “add some twists and turns to our love lives," says study co-author Justin Garcia, an evolutionary biologist at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and scientific advisor for the dating website Match.com. (Read "Dogs Are Even More Like Us Than We Thought.")
In 2014, Match.com and the retailer PetSmart surveyed about 2,300 single pet owners in the U.S. who had registered on Match.com. Of that number, 1,210 responded, 61 percent of whom were women. Sexual orientation was not questioned in the survey.
Respondents answered questions such as: “Would you judge a date based on their reaction to
