Nat Geo - Dog owners were right all along. Our pups really do get jealous when we direct our affection elsewhere—but mostly when their rival for attention appears to threaten their social life.
Once thought to be too complex an emotion for nonhumans, jealousy in canines—and the “pay attention to me” behaviors that arise from it—probably evolved to protect important social bonds in the pack, according to a new paper.
Study leader Christine Harris, a psychologist at the University of California at San Diego, was playing with her parents’ border collies when she got the idea to study jealousy in dogs. (Read “Animal Minds” in National Geographic magazine.)
“I noticed that when I was paying attention to two of them at the same time, petting them and talking to them, they weren’t content to share that attention,” she said. Read More
