The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach: What about horses? Sankey, C.Henry, S.Gorecka-Bruzda, A.Richard-Yris, M.-A.Hausberger, M. attachmenttactile contactgroominghuman-horse interactions Background: How do we bond to one another? While in some species, like humans, physical contact plays a role in the process of attachment, it has been suggested that tactile contact’s value may greatly differ according to the species considered. Nevertheless, grooming is often considered as a pleasurable experience for domestic animals, even though scientific data is lacking. On another hand, food seems to be involved in the creation of most relationships in a variety of species. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study, we used the horse training context to test the effects of food versus grooming during repeated human-horse interactions. The results reveal that food certainly holds a key role in the attachment process, while tactile contact was here clearly insufficient for bonding to occur. Conclusion/Significance: This study raises important questions on the way tactile contact is perceived, and shows that large inter-species differences are to be expected. Public Library of Science EthoS, UMR 6552CNRSUniversité de Rennes 1 2010 Article scientifique PLoS ONE, 2010, 5 (11): e15446 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015446?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+plosone%2FPLoSONE+%28PLoS+ONE+Alerts%3A+New+Articles%29doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015446