There are many theories around what does and doesn’t work to get matching swipe on dating apps. But thanks to the researchers from the University of Jaén in Spain, they have a sure way for dudes to get a match! 

And the solution is so ridiculously cute! All you need is a small dog. It’ll make you less intimidating. 

The research had 296 female college students view a picture of a man or woman either alone, or with a dog.  

“We selected two unpopular, medium- and small-sized adult dogs (Portuguese podengo-like mixed-breed dog and wire-haired dachshund, respectively) to examine whether the positive dog effect was due to dog presence itself or dog specificity,” the researchers wrote. 

With half the photos being in a ‘positive’ context, such as a well-lit, urban public space in the daytime. And the other half a ‘negative context’, with bad lighting, in a quite street.  

Based on the pictures, participants were asked to rate how intimidating and threatening they thought the people were. 

The results revealed that participants felt safer, more dominant and less scared of the people when a dog was present in the photo, in both the positive and negative contexts. 

In particular, smaller dogs enhanced positive reactions and a sense of safety in the majority of contexts. 

“The current study has shown that the small-sized dog prompts more positive emotional reactivity and higher levels of safety than the medium-sized dog in most emotional contexts, pointing out that emotional and safety benefits from dog presence might also be related to size,” the researchers wrote.