Men With Dogs In Their Dating App Pics Are ‘More Likely To Settle Down’

It's a sad truth that most women using dating apps have worried about when their match will ‘settle down’.

Whether that's because reading how people package themselves on dating apps is stressful, or because swiping on profile after profile and looking for a match that will be interested in long-term relationship takes a lot of mental energy, it's hard to say. Regardless, these things contribute to our relationship worries.

I think we all know, deep down, that everybody's intention on dating apps is different, and that as long as you're cautiously optimistic, there's hope that we can find someone more serious.

But, a new study may help put our online dating worries at ease a little more - as it concluded that men who pose with dogs in their dating app photos are more likely to be looking for a long-term relationship.

A researcher at Saint Mary’s University in Canada studied the dating profiles of 750 men and women, asking the respondents if they were looking for long-term relationships or short-term flings. It turns out, men who were searching for something serious, an average of 8 in 10 had a dating app photo featuring a dog. In comparison, only 5 out of every 10 men looking for a fling were seen posing with a pup.

Instead, those men were far more likely to display “their chests, their motorcycles, their boats and the big fish they caught on the weekend,” Professor Maryanne Fisher, an evolutionary psychologist who carried out the research said.

Fisher believes the puppy pics subconsciously signal to single women that a man is trustworthy and responsible.

“Keeping a dog alive is a huge investment. It is an investment financially, but also you have to walk it and care for it and keep something alive,” Fisher said.

“By showing these pictures perhaps they’re thinking, ‘OK women, you’ll see these and infer that I’m willing to do the same things in our relationship.'”

However, the psychologist says she simply cannot determine whether men include the canine snaps because they “unconsciously know that dogs are the best way to entice women.”

But, single men sometimes use dogs in dating profile photos to make their profiles more enticing — a practice most people dubbed as “dogfishing.”

“Some people talk about ‘falling in love’; in my field we talk about ‘mating strategies,'” Fisher explained.

In many cases, men borrow puppies that aren’t their own for the photograph — deceiving their dates into believing they’re dog dads.

One man admitted that he pinched a puppy from a pal purely to take a photo for an app.

“I added one into my profile because … it’s just the done thing to have a picture with a dog. Everyone knows that people want to swipe on it, and you’ve got to stay ahead of the game,” the man confessed.

Indeed, surveys have shown women are more likely to swipe on a man’s profile if he has a photo with a four-legged friend.

Sixty-three percent of respondents to a 2002 survey for a pet food brand “I and love and you” said having a cute pooch on their profile helped them get a match online.

Meanwhile, over a third (39 percent) of respondents said they swiped right because they wanted to meet the dog in someone’s profile more than they wanted to meet the person.

The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.