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Empathy in Dogs
Empathy has been viewed as an emotion unique to humans, but recent research suggests other animals, such as dogs, could share this more complex way of thinking. The media has portrayed many examples of animals behaving empathically and with altruistic-like behavior. One example is Eve, a Rottweiler who pulled her paraplegic owner, Kathie Vaughan, to safety after the owner's truck unexpectedly filled with noxious gas and exploded. Many researchers have started studying empathic-behavior and have developed many ways of testing empathy in dogs.

There are many theories as to why dogs would have evolved empathic behavior. One theory is that dogs evolved from wolves, who are highly social animals with complex roles and hierarchies within the pack. The development of empathic-like behavior may have been essential to carrying out the many duties and behaviors these roles within the pack demanded. Empathy simply aided in the survival of this particular species. However, this theory doesn't necessarily explain why domesticated dogs would behave empathically toward an unrelated species, such as humans. Some believe that empathy developed during the domestication of dogs through the close proximity and cohabitation of humans. Empathy would allow dogs to predict and read human behavior more easily, and promote some clearer form of communication between the species.

Custance and Mayer looked at the curious empathic-like behavior of dogs towards humans. Eighteen medium-sized domestic dogs and their owners were recruited for the study. The study involved exposing each dog to 20-seconds of either humming or crying-like sounds coming from the dog's owner as well as a stranger. Out of the eighteen canines in the study, fifteen of them approached both their owner and the stranger when the individual pretended to cry. Thirteen of the fifteen dogs approached the crying individual submissively, and not in a playful manner. Very few dogs approached an individual during the humming-condition of the experiment, which suggests that the dogs were not simply approaching the individual out of curiosity. The researchers concluded that many of the dogs behaved with empathic-like concern and comfort-offering toward both their owners as well as strangers.

Another behavior that has researchers questioning if empathy exists in the canine species is contagious yawning. Research has found that dogs will yawn after observing a human yawn. Dogs have been observed yawning after witnessing both familiar and unfamiliar humans yawning. However, the dogs tend to react and yawn more to humans who are familiar to them. There is still some disagreement whether contagious yawning is an empathy-related response.