Jealousy Not Just In Humans

It’s now proven that jealousy is not just a human trait. Jealousy in dogs actually evolved to protect their social bond with their Master. Dogs do engage in what appears to be jealous behaviours but they are also seeking to break up the connection between the owner and a seeming rival. Our furry friends are motivated to protect an important social relationship – that of Master and Dog. This is the first time that a study has been conducted on dog jealousy. In the University of California 36 dogs were subjected to an experiment on how they will react to stuffed animals. The owner of these dogs were instructed to treat the objects as though they were real dogs – patting them, talking to them sweetly and so on. For the next experiment, the dog owners were asked to read aloud a pop-up book that played melodies. Out of 36 dogs, 27 showed a reaction when the owner interacted with the faux dog,15-when the owner was attending to the container holding the objects and 8 when the owner is reading a book. About 11 dogs intervened between their owner and the stuffed animal. About 86% of these dogs sniffed the toy dog’s rear-end during the experiment or post-experiment phase. From this it became quite clear that dogs display strong distress whenever a rival steal’s their loved one’s affection.