Photographer puts owners and their dogs side by side

Monica and Reggie the Chow Chow (Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Dogs really do seem to look like their owners and now we have further evidence.

Photographer Gerrard Gethings’ new series, commissioned by Laurence King Publishing, includes 50 portraits of owners pictured side by side with their canine friends and the results are uncanny.

From long-haired afghan hounds with their hipster owners to Chinese crested dogs with the same fluffy heads as their humans, it really is a case of spot the difference.

‘We’ve all seen these couples in the park,’ Gethings tells Metro.co.uk.

‘There’s an old man with an old grey dog. A bearded man with a schnauzer. Curly hair and a poodle.

‘It was something I’d been thinking about for a while but in order to make it happen I needed backing.

‘The idea was to shoot 50 convincing canine/human couples that would be beautiful, compelling but also kind of amusing.

Henry and Hope (Afghan Hound)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Gethings says that his interest in animals began at a young age.

‘I was forever coming home with young birds and hedgehogs. I had snakes in my bedroom and a plastic hamster crate full of crayfish in the yard.

‘I could tickle trout and name every British bird by the time I was at primary school.

‘I dreamed of having a Kestrel but even in the easy-going 70s this was highly illegal.’

The similarities between dogs and their owners, as illustrated by Gethings’ photographs, isn’t coincidental.

Several scientific studies have proved that you can predict, with fairly reliable accuracy, which dogs belong to which owners by looking at physical resemblance.

Sarah and Bruno (Bedlington Terrier)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Some psychologists believe that owners are unconsciously biased towards dogs that look like them because a familiar looking pup seems comforting, safe and like they are already part of the family.

Gerrard thinks that the reason our dogs look like us ‘boils down to vanity’.

‘I suspect that when we see beauty in a dog, we are perhaps pointing a finger at ourselves. It’s subconscious but there all the same.

‘I don’t think that I would ever be so shallow but having said that, my dog has light brown hair and a beard, just like me.’

And as the photos show, the similarities are seemingly endless:

Jessica and Buddy (Bichon Frise)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Charlotte and Caspar (Chinese Crested)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Francois and Antoine (French Bulldog)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Cenk and Horst (Schnauzer)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Siobhan and Rusty (Irish Setter)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Pete and Pixie (Cocker Spaniel)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

Harry and Hattie (Spinone)

(Picture: Gerrard Gethings)

You can see more of Gerrard’s work here.