My family's jealousy was caused by the dog...

Being jealous is an innate emotion of human beings. Do you think it is exclusive to humans?

In fact, cute dogs are also born jealous.

Dog owners should have this experience: if they get close to other dogs while walking their dogs, their dogs may exhibit some aggressive behaviors.

If the owners rub other dogs outside, the dogs' sensitive sense of smell will be able to identify it, and they may even silently emo or simply ignore you. These behaviors are all manifestations of jealousy in dogs.

Image source: hippopx

Jealous dog

Jealousy is a primitive social emotion. In everyone's subjective consciousness, jealousy is considered to be an emotion unique to humans, a high-level animal.

But a large amount of research shows that not only humans, but other animals can also get jealous.

From an evolutionary perspective, jealousy is a way of protecting social relationships from outsiders. As long as there are social animals, jealousy will exist.

Dogs rely more on body language to communicate. They can judge their owners' intentions based on their movements, including pupil contraction, muscle tension, foot position, body standing direction, etc., and then quickly take action based on this information. Therefore, when dogs catch different intentions in their owners' movements, they will also respond in different behaviors and emotions accordingly.

Image source: hippopx

Dogs are jealous of: all imaginary enemies

In 2014, scientists conducted an experiment in which they used dogs from 36 households as experimental subjects and asked the owners to play with other things in front of their dogs, including a stuffed dog that would wag its tail from time to time, a pumpkin lantern, and a children's book.

Scientists found that when the owner showed affection for the toy dog, the dog's mood changed significantly compared to other objects. When the owner stroked the fake dog, the dog would immediately rush over to attract the owner, and use its front paws to keep pushing away the owner's stroking hand, and even behave aggressively towards the fake dog.

This behavior is more intense than the dog's behavior when the owner plays with a pumpkin lantern, but it seems much calmer than when the owner holds a book.

Through this experiment, it is clear that the dog regards the toy dog ​​as a potential competitor and a potential culprit that destroys the relationship between itself and its owner.

In the experiment, 86% of the dogs smelled the toy dog's butt before or after the experiment. Sniffing the butt is a social way for dogs, which shows that the dogs really take the toy dog ​​seriously.

Of course, the dog's behavior may not be due to jealousy or envy, but may be because it wants to establish its authority among its new companions and thus protect its territory.

Image source: hippopx

Simple behavioral emotions cannot accurately prove whether a dog is jealous. In order to further verify the dog's psychology, the researchers conducted another experiment in 2018.

The researchers had their owners reward the sham dogs with food, then scanned the dogs' brains to monitor changes in the amygdala, a small structure in the brain that is often associated with emotional responses.

After the experiment began, when the dog saw its owner feeding the fake dog, neurons in the brain area related to negative emotions and aggression began to discharge, causing the amygdala to become active, ultimately leading to aggressive behavior.

It can be seen that dogs truly love their owners, and this love cannot be divided.

Image source: hippopx

How to explain this emotion

There is ample evidence that pets are emotionally attached to their owners. For example, dogs become depressed when their owners are away, and their vital signs can even fluctuate dramatically in extreme situations such as the death of their owners.

In the dog's world, they have a very strong attachment to their owners, so the appearance of other animals is a threat in their eyes.

When a dog shows the following behaviors, the owner should pay attention, as this means the dog is currently in a depressed state.

When a dog launches an inexplicable attack, such as growling, baring teeth, or trying to attack other pets or humans, it means that the dog is extremely insecure and is venting in this way. At this time, please pay more attention to your dog and stroke it patiently to ease the dog's emotional fluctuations.

Some dogs will choose to hide in a corner and feel sad when they see you being overly friendly to other dogs, or even deliberately distance themselves from you, thus expressing their emotions to you through this "cold war" method.

Some jealous dogs will even go on a hunger strike to make their stance clear to you.

Image source: pexels

Whether it is jealousy or other negative emotions, it is not good for the dog's health, and in severe cases it can even cause depression. So for the sake of your dog's emotional stability, you should avoid "playing around" outside.

For a dog, you are his/her whole world.

Image source: hippopx

Today's Interaction

Q: How does your dog behave when he’s jealous?

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Reviewer: Wu Lei, national licensed veterinarian, master's degree candidate in clinical veterinary medicine at Sichuan Agricultural University

Editor/Heart and Paper

Source: Tadpole Musical Notation