Posted on 06/18/2012 7:20:06 AM PDT by JoeProBono
LONDON, - Dogs respond to a person who is crying regardless of whether it is their owner or an unfamiliar person, researchers in Britain found.
Dr. Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer, both of the Department of Psychology at the University of London, developed a procedure to examine whether domestic dogs could identify and respond to emotional states in humans.
Eighteen pet dogs -- a range of ages and breeds -- were exposed to four separate 20-second experimental conditions in which either the dog's owner or an unfamiliar person pretended to cry, hummed in an odd manner, or carried out a casual conversation.
More dogs looked at, approached and touched the humans as they were crying as opposed to humming, and no dogs responded to those talking, Custance said.
The study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, found a majority of dogs in the study responded to the crying person in a submissive manner consistent with empathic concern and comfort-offering.
"If the dogs' approaches during the crying condition were motivated by self-oriented comfort-seeking, they would be more likely to approach their usual source of comfort, their owner, rather than the stranger," Mayer said in a statement. "No such preference was found. The dogs approached whoever was crying regardless of their identity. Thus they were responding to the person's emotion, not their own needs, which is suggestive of empathic-like comfort-offering behavior."
Client was embarrassed. I knew the dog was trying to help heal me.
Both the dog and me are still okay.
Of course they do. Dogs are very emotional creatures. They don’t have a whole hell of a lot of executive control, i.e. reasoning ability (though they do very well with what they do have), but their emotional empathy skills are top-notch. I believe you’d find that cats respond too, though their comforting skills are not as well developed as dogs.
Dogs have enormous empathy. When my mom was dying (my parents lived with us in their later years), one of my dogs laid beside her on the bed constantly the last few weeks of her life. He only left to “do his business” and eat. When Mom died, Willy kept putting his head under her hand trying to make her pet him. It was so terribly sad, but also moving.
After Mom died, Willy and his sister sat in the recliner with my dad all day long...one on each side of him so he could pet each of them at the same time!
When my husband died, those same dogs stayed beside me all the time, following me around constantly, comforting me and getting me through it. Frankly, I don’t know if I would have made it if it weren’t for my dogs!
we dog lovers already knew the answer before they did their study! Love the picture—we have a lab mix and she is definitely my second shadow. Knows when I’m sad, knows when I’m sick...such a sweet companion. We’ve had cats and horses, too—my daughter often found comfort from her horse when she was crying: she’d cry into his neck and he’d nuzzle her and get very protective of her. Recently we had to sell him (broke ALL of our hearts) and I thought my tears would not ever stop. She is beside herself with sadness, but thank goodness she has a mission trip coming up and can focus on someone else and not her broken heart. She, too, is a BIG animal lover, and plans to be a vet...
"I notice you'se upset!... Are you gonna eat that?!!"
Dogs experience a wide range of human-like feelings. They know family and home, sadness, joy, play, teasing, protectiveness, shame, etc... It's a lot of work to raise a dog to be a really good dog, but once all of that work is done, a dog returns your effort a hundred times over.
Ping!
Yeah, first they chew up your precious priceless stock certificates of Facebook, and then, when you cry over your lost fortune, they show empathy!
I had a monstrous yellow lab in the past. He loved to play dodge with me. One time, he ran directly into my legs and planted me face down. Despite all the action and excitement, he immediately came over to me very gently and licked me and waited for me to get up. He had a very guilty look on his face.
Doggies haz teh friendlies.
Very sweet. I had a cat once who did the same for me. Rest in peace my surrogate Mommy and Daddy-T man. That cat raised me through my twenties and made me grow up. I am so blessed to have had such a companion. RIP baby and all the other special pets. I often pray for all pets to be comforted especially the ones alone or abused.
Dogs and Cats are angels on earth in my opinion even though I am sort of sure my religion would not agree except for St. Francis of course :-). I’m sticking to it anyway.
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