It is commonly believed that jealousy is only experienced by humans because it involves complex thoughts and feelings. However, from a practical standpoint, it would make sense for other social animals, especially ones as intelligent as dogs, to have an emotion that evolved to protect their social bonds from intruders. In this study, the researchers used a method commonly used with human infants to investigate if dogs experience jealousy. They found that dogs showed more jealous behaviors (such as snapping, getting between the owner and object, and touching/pushing the object or owner) when their owners showed affection towards what seemed to be another dog compared to when the affection was directed towards non-living objects. These findings support the idea that jealousy has a basic form that exists in human infants and at least one other social species besides humans.

Read the full study at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094597

© Christine R. Harris, Caroline Prouvost

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