Do You Look Like Your Dog?

There are some researchers, who’ve been very lucky with their funding, who have studied the ways in which pets resemble their owners. If you’ve ever been to a dog show you’ll probably have noticed the phenomenon yourself. Sure enough, it’s been noted that when shown a random mixture of owner/pet photos, people are able to match those owners with their pets at a higher than random rate.

30 Owners Who Look Like Their Dogs, from Buzzfeed

I sometimes wish I could see photographs of illustrators alongside their pictures. I bet illustrators most naturally draw people look like themselves — similar face shapes and stature, even if they don’t mean to. Indeed, even if they go out of their way. Because we spend a lot of time looking at family members, and they tend to look like ourselves. We must also have a ‘default setting’ for a face, and that default is ourselves.

Do you look like your pet? We own a rather attractive Border collie. Though if I think harder, he hasn’t had a good brush in quite a while, and I have to admit I care about my own coiffure just about exactly as much. Think I’ll duck off to the bathroom and run a comb through my hair…

The Penguin Ronald Searle By Ronald Searle (published by Penguin Books Ltd, London 1960)
The Penguin Ronald Searle By Ronald Searle (published by Penguin Books Ltd, London 1960)
The Penguin Ronald Searle By Ronald Searle (published by Penguin Books Ltd, London 1960)
The Penguin Ronald Searle By Ronald Searle (published by Penguin Books Ltd, London 1960)
The Penguin Ronald Searle By Ronald Searle (published by Penguin Books Ltd, London 1960)
Julian de Miske 1929
Sisters by Dorte Clara Wolff. 1928 (Dodo) (1907 – 1998), German painter and illustrator, women dog

Related: Stuart Freeborn designed Yoda based on himself. Who else looks like the character they designed?

Header illustration: Wladyslaw Theodor Benda (1873 – 1948) Elegant Woman and Afghan

CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)

On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.

Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:

1. Get a pet dog

2. Find a friend. Just one. Not too intense.

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