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Wednesday, January 14, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Paw
Prints
Jodi Schneider McNamee
Columnist
What emotions
do dogs feel?
You’ve caught the flu and
you really feel poorly. Fido
watches your every move
and won’t leave your side all
day, which is out of the norm
for him. Could he be feeling
empathy?
Two recent studies are
moving us closer than ever
to a definite answer. In a
UK study, two researchers
at Goldsmiths College in
London, Deborah Custance
and Jennifer Mayer, set out to
determine if dogs are capable
of empathy. They designed
a clever experiment to test
whether a dog’s behavior
around apparently distressed
people is consistent with
empathy.
First they gathered a group
of largely untrained dogs,
mostly mixed breeds of both
males and females. Then
they set up a situation with
the dog’s pet parent and a
stranger to the pooch. The pet
parent and the stranger would
alternately talk, cry, or hum a
song.
The researchers wanted
to see how the dogs reacted.
If the dogs felt empathy,
they would be more likely to
approach whoever was cry-
ing. The intervals of talking
provided a baseline because
low key human conversation
is something that happens
around dogs all the time, and
that isn’t usually much inter-
est to them.
The dogs responded: 15 of
the 18 in the study sought out
the person in distress even if
that person was the stranger.
“On the surface, it cer-
tainly seemed as if the dogs
were demonstrating empa-
thy,” said Custance, who
thought that if the dogs were
seeking comfort for them-
selves they would go to their
pet parent.
She admitted that the
study raises other questions:
What about other emotions,
such as pleasure or anger?
There’s no doubt that
dogs have emotions. They
feel joy after a job well done,
and they feel sadness when
another furry family member
passes away.
Dogs even have the hor-
mone oxytocin, which in
humans is involved with feel-
ing love and affection for
others.
Most people routinely
read emotions in their furry
friends: a wagging tail when
you arrive home means
Fido’s happy, or if his ears
are back and he’s crouching
low to the ground with his
tail tucked under, he’s fear-
ful. Another example could
be when you’re out on a walk
and when another canine
approaches, Fido freezes in
place, his hackles raised, and
he gives a low throaty growl,
photo by Jodi sChneider mCnamee
Anticipation is a strong emotion that dogs feel in the same manner as excitement.
at that point, you probably
realize that your furry friend
does not like the other dog,
and he is angry.
However, it’s impor-
tant to remember that those
emotions are different from
those of adult humans. The
feeling that dogs experience
isn’t connected to complex
thoughts. Studies say they
don’t have ulterior motives
or doubt. Their emotions are
pure and honest.
Researchers have now
come to believe that the mind
of a dog is compared to that
of a human who is two to
two-and-a-half years old. The
researchers’ conclusion holds
for most mental abilities as
well as emotions.
Dogs seem to have an
intuitive understanding of fair
play, and become resentful if
they feel that another dog is
getting a better deal, a new
study has found. The study
found that dogs are capable
of feeling jealous or of judg-
ing fairness.
Friederike Range, a
researcher at the University
of Vienna in Austria, and
her colleagues did a series of
experiments that show that
dogs will stop doing a simple
task when not rewarded if
another dog continues to be
rewarded.
The experiment consisted
of taking pairs of dogs and
getting them to give a paw
for a reward. On giving
this “handshake” the dogs
received a piece of food.
The dogs were normally
happy to repeatedly give
the paw, whether they got a
reward or not.
But that all changed if
they saw that another dog was
being rewarded with a piece
of food, while they received
nothing.
The dog without the
reward quickly stopped doing
the task, and showed signs of
annoyance or stress when its
partner was rewarded.
“Dogs show a strong aver-
sion to unfairness,” said Dr.
Range, who conducted the
study.
So what does this mean
for people who live and inter-
act with their furry friends?
The good news is that you
can still feel free to dress your
pooch in that silly costume
for the Halloween parade,
and he will not feel shame,
regardless of how silly he
might look. Your dog will
also not feel pride at taking
home the top prize in the tal-
ent contest. But your dog can
consistently feel love for you
and feel contentment from
your company, and that’s
really the heart of the matter.
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