New research shows that you might not be the only one feeling the loss of a beloved canine companion. Your family's other dogs could also go through mourning, as indicated by their behavior.
According to a survey of multiple-dog owners in Italy, when one dog in the family dies, any others are more likely than not to display a lack of doggy luster. The paper represents a step towards recognizing an aspect of animal care that has been underestimated.
The findings show that a dog may show grief-related behavioral and emotional patterns when a close conspecific dies, with aspects of the latter possibly related to the owner's emotional status.
If you have ever owned a pet, you would think that they have rich, deep emotional lives. The scientific exploration and documentation of these emotional lives is relatively recent.
It's interesting that grief could tell us something about animal cognitive processes, suggestive as it is of a subjective experience. In the case of pets, it can help us look after their emotional needs.
There are a number of animals that exhibit grieving behaviors. There isn't much in the scientific literature about grief in canids. There is no documented evidence of grief in our domesticated friends.
They set out to find some. They recruited people who lived with at least two dogs and had experienced the death of one of them. The humans were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their dogs' behavior after their death.
The relationship between the dogs and their owners was described by the humans. To make sure that the memories of behavior were not affected by the diminishing memory of their own suffering during grief, the researchers assessed whether the humans' recollections of their pets were impacted by the diminishing memory of their own suffering during grief.
The majority of dogs had behavioral changes noticed by their humans after the loss of a family member. A majority of the humans said that their dog's behavior had become more needy.
The most common behavior reported by 67 percent of these humans was an increase in seeking attention, followed by a decline in playing and a decline in activity from their dog. 35 percent of owners reported that they spent more time sleeping and more fearfully, while 32 reported a decline in appetite and 30 reported more whining or barking.
93 percent of the dogs had been living with their friends for more than a year, and 69 percent had friendly relationships. The duration of time they had been living together had no effect on the behavior of the surviving dog.
The strength of the relationship between the dogs and the humans had a correlation with the behavior of the surviving dogs. If the dogs had a good relationship and the human was grieving a lot, the surviving dog would be less interested in activity, be less fearful, and seek more attention from their human.
The researchers said it was not possible to draw a strong conclusion and state that dogs grieve the deaths of their friends. There are other factors that can affect the behavior of dogs.
Since human-dog bonding can have an effect on a dog's perception of a dead conspecific, it would be difficult to attribute a specific pattern, if any, of exploration.
A specific function may be attributed to the dogs behavior, but attention to a deceased individual may also occur as a result of the owners increasing attention. Since stress seems to spread between dogs and owners, an emotional contagion might also be considered. The dogs are responding to the loss of an affiliate more than their death.
The dogs seem to be feeling something. If it means happier, healthier animal friends, further investigation into the way dogs respond to death should be done.
The paper has been published.
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