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Many pet dogs are hesitant to warm up to strangers and can feel threatened if unknown people touch them or even look at them 鈥� but now researchers have found an easy way to make friends.

鈥淚t鈥檚 creating familiarity between the dog and the human, without having to touch or use toys or food, or even make eye contact,鈥� says at Aix-Marseille University in France.

Lamontagne and her colleagues fitted 32 pet dogs, representing a variety of breeds and ages, with a camera and a GPS device attached to a harness. They let each dog wander freely in an open field, one at a time, for 15 minutes while their owner stood quietly nearby.

The dogs were split into two groups. In the first, a researcher 鈥� who the dogs had never seen before 鈥� followed each animal wherever it went, staying side-by-side within a metre鈥檚 distance. For the other group, they stayed 鈥渦nsynchronised鈥�, keeping their distance and moving, stopping and starting at different rates. In all cases, the researcher avoided looking at or talking to the dogs.

Once this phase had ended, the researcher called the dog to them, then looked at it and spoke to it for 10 seconds. Immediately afterwards, they turned away from the dog and started moving at various speeds along a straight line, without looking at or talking to the dog, for a total of 45 seconds.

The dogs that had been followed for the first 15 minutes stayed much closer to the researcher during the straight-line test, compared with those that hadn鈥檛. These dogs were also in less of a hurry to get back to their owners.

The findings suggest that this synchronisation helps build the relationship between human and dog, says team member , also at CNRS Aix-Marseille University. That could be because many mammals tend to mirror the movements 鈥� like yawning, scratching, getting up or moving 鈥� of others in their close social group.

鈥淲e become 鈥榝riends鈥� with the dog without even having to touch him or look him directly in the eyes,鈥� says Lamontagne.

The hands-off technique could be especially useful for managing shelter dogs or strays, or for introducing people to fearful dogs.

鈥淲e now have a way of doing something 鈥� without interacting directly with the dog 鈥� that changes the dog鈥檚 behaviour, even though he doesn鈥檛 even know us,鈥� she says.