Doggies
People's canine companions make for good icebreakers, and can overcome the barriers humans put between themselves and strangers.

People's canine companions make for good icebreakers, and can overcome the barriers humans put between themselves and strangers.
Thirty years ago, Paul Knott broke his neck in a car accident, landing him in a wheelchair and ending his career as a firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Since then, he's gone back to school, finished his degree, started working as a "data cowboy" (his words), trained people on dispatch systems (still for CAL FIRE), and raised three Australian shepherds.

He got his first dog, Bear, shortly before the accident, and ended up training him as a service dog to get around his landlords' "no pets" policy. Bear and his successors—first Ed, now Charlie—have accompanied Knott everywhere: to work, on errands, around town. And he's noticed that on their wanderings, Charlie draws in a lot of new friends.

"My guy is very eager to meet people," says Knott, now 62 years old. "He'll look 'em right in the eye and say 'Hi,' so that starts the interaction, and the person starts conversing about the animal. 'What's his name? Oh, he's your helper?' And within five or 10 minutes, you could be into a conversation that person would've never imagined initiating without the animal there."

Though anyone who has found her hands itching to pet a stranger's dog when it passes on the sidewalk looking all pettable knows this in her heart to be true, it's nice to have the data to back it up: Dogs are great facilitators of social interaction. Especially between strangers.

In studies observing the reactions people get while out and about with dogs, researchers have found that strangers offer more smiles and friendly glances to people with dogs, and are more likely to approach and have a conversation with someone with a canine companion. In one study from 2008, people helped a stranger who dropped a handful of coins pick them up more often if he had a dog with him, and were more likely to give him money for the bus when he asked.