This New Study Reveals Why Playing With Your Dog Is So Important
A 2026 Linköping University study recently published in Royal Society Open Science revealed why playing with your dog is so important, and the results are actually really heartwarming.
While training is often viewed as the most important activity for building trust and an emotional bond with your pup, play has been found to be just as impactful, if not more so, for strengthening your closeness with your doggie.
Why Is Playing With Your Dog So Important? What the Research Says
The study sought to see how human-dog play would influence the relationship between the dog and its owner, and how this compared to other interactions, such as training.
To find out, dog parents first took an online survey using the Monash Dog–Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) and questions about their typical training and play routines. For example, dog parents were questioned about how often they took their canine companion with them to visit friends and family.
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From there, the study participants were broken into three groups: play, training and control. The play group would participate in more play sessions than normal, while the training group would train more than normal and use treats as rewards. The control group would continue their routines as normal. After four weeks, participants took the survey again.
The study found a significant causal relationship between an improvement in the emotional bond between the dog parent and the dog and an increase in time spent playing together. The control and training groups, however, experienced no improvement. This indicates that play is incredibly beneficial to both the pup and their paw-rent.
Lina Roth, senior associate professor of ethology at Linköping University and study author, discussed the importance of finding the right type of play for your dog, specifically in order to get the best results.
"Just throwing a ball isn't enough. As we were after the social interaction between dog and human, the games we proposed in the study were, for example, tug-of-war, rough and tumble, chasing each other, hide-and-seek, peekaboo or teasing the dog a little with your fingers," said Roth in a statement. "You don't have to keep at it for long; it's more about paying attention to your dog's behavior. A few minutes every now and then seems to make a big difference."
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This story was originally published May 4, 2026 at 10:20 AM.