Darwin, the evolutionary biologist made an observation in 1871 that dogs feel jealous of their master’s affection towards other creatures. Since then there has been significant debate over the idea of jealousy in dogs and animals in general. In fact, its not as if we have an intricate understanding of why humans feel jealousy and how the mind exactly operates under such a mental state.
However, interestingly, experts at the University of California discovered that dogs had a higher chance of pushing their owners if they felt they were being excluded from their owner’s affection. The lead researcher Professor Christine Harris suggests that the study doesn’t only prove that dogs exhibit jealous behavior but also that they seek to break up the connection between the owner and the perceived rival. She also disagrees with the idea the jealousy is a social construction and is limited to humans, she says that the study suggests that animals besides us feel a strong sense of distress whenever a seeming rival takes a loved one’s affection.
The study used an adapted test for six month old babies to monitor the reaction of 36 dogs. The owner would ignore the dog and aim to give affection to a stuffed dog which could bark and wag its tail. The dogs were filmed and the recording shows a variety of behaviors that are indicative of a jealous feeling. The aggression displayed by most of the dogs was – according to the researchers – suggestive of the fact that they thought the stuffed animal was a real dog and in comparable instances of inanimate objects like a Halloween bucket similar aggression was not exhibited.
Prof Harris said that they couldn’t really speak to the dogs but their behavior was indicative of the fact that they felt like they needed to protect an important social relationship.
This not only suggests that animals can express feelings of jealousy but also indicates towards a more complex cognition in dogs. It shows that they are capable of complex emotions and might not be as simple minded as many humans believe. It might also be interesting to see whether other animals exhibit the same behavior and a comparison between much conditioned animals who are tamed like dogs and other wilder animals which are conditioned would also perhaps conclusively tell us whether animals inherently have these complicated cognitive processes or if they learn to act the way they do because of years of conditioning with humans.
