Even though some scientists have argued that jealousy is an entirely social construct, dog owners would not dispute that their puppies can be as possessive as humans and the an experiment on jealousy in dogs confirms this.
For the study, researchers adapted a test used with six-month-old human infants. They worked with 36 dogs in their own homes and videotaped the owners ignoring them in favour of a book, a stuffed dog or a bucket with a face painted on it.
Dogs were about twice as likely to push or touch the owner when the owner was interacting with the faux dog (78 per cent) as when the owner was attending to the pail (42 per cent). Even fewer (22 per cent) did this when the owner took up the book.
“Our study suggests not only that dogs do engage in what appear to be jealous behaviour but also that they were seeking to break up the connection between the owner and a seeming rival,” said Christine Harris, a professor of psychology at University of California, San Diego in the U.S.
The findings support the view that there may be a more basic form of jealousy, which evolved to protect social bonds from interlopers.
The study appeared in the journal PLOS ONE .
