Some people claim that dogs feel human pain while others claim that dogs feel their master's pain solely because of the emotional bond they share.
Regardless of one opinion or another, the truth is that dogs are social animals that understand and empathize with those around them. If you have a best friend by your side, perhaps you have also felt how your dog felt the pain you suffered and tried to comfort you.
In this article on our site we will assess whether it is true that dogs feel people's pain from a scientific point of view.
Dogs are able to differentiate our emotions
According to a study conducted at Goldsmiths University by a group of psychologists, dogs are able to distinguish between crying among others moods. In addition, they try to comfort him regardless of whether it is his owner who is sad or someone else. His capacity for empathy exceeds that of many of our peers.
We must understand that we humans are constantly exposed to endless emotions: advertising, our friendships, current affairs… We are so used to it that sometimes we don't understand how it is possible for a dog I'm going to react in such a pure and sentimental way. For them, seeing someone sad and expressing it through tears can cause a quite strong emotional shock.
Confirmed: dogs feel our pain and comfort us
The study carried out by this group of psychologists led by Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer, consisted of subjecting 18 dogs of different breeds to three different emotionscarried out by different people. The three emotions were:
- Speak
- Hum
- Mourn
Encouraging a person to hum, sing or make strange sounds was a suitable option to see if the dogs reacted the same or in a similar way to seeing someone cry. However, it was not.
Faced with the first emotion, speaking, they showed indifference. When people began to hum they showed curiosity, nervousness and excitement. Finally, when people cried, the dogs felt great empathy that translated into sadness. They approached in a submissive attitude and sought physical contact to somehow alleviate the sadness they saw before them.
The experiment revealed that yes, dogs feel people's pain.
And us, are we capable of feeling our pet's pain?
Just as we feel emotion when we think that our dog understands us, we must be able to understand him too To do this, and especially if we don't know him very well, it will be useful to observe him at all times to know if he eats, plays, sleeps and reacts normally or if, on the contrary, he is not. If we understand our dog we will be able to quickly notice a symptom of discomfort or sadness in the dog.
Don't forget that dogs can also suffer from depression or mental he alth problems. For this reason, if you observe sadness in your dog, it would be ideal to try to improve his day-to-day life with games and activities that improve your complicity.
A good way to improve the relationship between dog and human is through dog training, more specifically through canine obedience. We must know that the dog is a social animal that will have a great time learning new tricks as long as it is rewarded for it through the positive reinforcement technique.
