Dogs can experience jealousy and it is not only the sensation that it gives you when your furry starts barking like a riot if he sees you stroking a puppy in the street or if he gives you the impression that he has “fluff” on him. your new partner . A scientific experiment carried out a few years ago and published in the prestigious scientific journal Plos One attests to this.
The jealousy experiment
Christine Harris, a psychology professor at the University of California, San Diego, and her team did an experiment with 36 dogs that they recorded in their homes. The test consisted in that the owners of the animals had to ignore them while paying attention to three objects : a stuffed dog that looked like a real dog (it even barked and moaned), a bucket and a book. In the first two cases, the humans had to treat the stuffed animal and the bucket as if they were dogs, talking and caressing them. In the third they read the book from which melodies came out. What happened was that the dogs became jealous when the owners were affectionate with the stuffed animal, which they considered another dog (there were even those who sniffed its butt). The dogs in the study showed jealous behaviors such as getting between the owner and the stuffed animal, nibbling, and touching or shoving the stuffed animal or owner.
Seek expert advice if you see the matter getting out of hand
So yeah, your dog can get jealous, whether it’s the arrival of a baby, another dog, or even someone else in your life. We tell you more about this emotion that we share with canids and we give you ideas both to prevent and to curb jealousy. Of course, if you see that by yourself you are not able to solve the problem, do not wait for it to get out of hand and go to the ethologist , he is the one who can best advise you and provide you with the guidelines to follow so that it does not become in a serious difficulty in coexistence.
