This won't surprise most owners - dogs can be jealous. But now it is a new study from the University of California, San Diego, published in PLoS ONE to confirm this. This is the first experimental test on jealousy behaviors in dogs.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
This won't surprise most owners: dogs can be jealous. But now it is a new study from the University of California, San Diego, published in PLoS ONE to confirm this. This is the first experimental test on jealousy behaviors in dogs.
The findings support those who argue that there may be a more basic form of jealousy, which has evolved to protect social bonds from intruders. For years, in fact, some scientists have argued the opposite, that is that jealousy required complex cognition, arguing that this feeling was an entirely social construction - which is why it does not manifest itself in all human cultures.
Researchers Harris and Prouvost now show that dogs exhibited typical jealousy behaviors when their owner showed affection for what appeared to be another dog (actually it was just a stuffed dog barking, yapping and wagging its tail). Dogs exhibited less of this behavior when the same affection was poured out on a new object or when the owner was focused on reading a book.
"Our study suggests not only that dogs engage in what appear to be jealous behaviors, but also that they were trying to break the link between the owner and a rival - he said Harris-. We can't really talk about dogs' subjective experiences, of course, but it seems like they're motivated to protect an important social relationship. ”
The researchers worked with 36 dogs in their homes, videotaping the owners who ignored them in favor of another object. The owners were instructed to treat the items as if they were real dogs. So it turned out that the dogs were twice as likely to push or touch the owner when he interacted with the fake dog (78 percent).
Did the dogs believe the stuffed animal was a real rival? Harris and Prouvost write that their aggression suggests yes, they did. And they also cite as further evidence that 86 percent of dogs sniffed the rear end of the toy dog during the experiment or post-experiment.
Roberta Ragni
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