What do dogs want, petting or being spoken to? According to a study it’s very much the former.

Scientists found that dogs had a preference for petting, whether it was from a stranger or from their owner.

And it was found that dogs will only respond to vocal praise when they are very familiar with an owner and their voice.

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Research led by the University of Florida says dogs prefer petting (stock image shown). In the study they found dogs were more satisfied by physical contact. But they also found that dogs never tired of being petted. The results were true for dogs being petter by strangers and their owners

The research was led by Dr Erica Feuerbacher from the University of Florida.

In the study, co-authored by Dr Clive Wynne of Arizona State University, the scientists examined a variety of dogs and their responses to situations.

They looked at shelter dogs, owned dogs with strangers providing interactions and owned dogs with their owner providing interactions.

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Across all groups they found the dogs had a preference for petting over vocal praise.

Additionally they found that dogs never tired of being petted.

When the dogs were petted they also preferred to stay in the proximity of the experimenter.

But when only vocal praise was used they showed little proximity-seeking behaviour, on a similar level to when no interaction was initiated at all.

‘Overall, petting seems to be an important interaction between dogs and humans that might maintain inter-specific social behavior but vocal praise likely has to be specifically conditioned,’ the researchers write.

Previous research this year from the same two scientists, however, found that petting wasn’t the be-all and end-all; the animals actually preferred food to being touched.

When food was readily available the dogs preferred to eat than be petted, and when access to food was limited the dogs showed ‘sensitivity’.