Fascinating report from the BBC today. A study has revealed that dogs emulate human yawning, proving what many dog owners have known for centuries, dogs can and do show empathy toward their homo sapien counterparts.

“We gave dogs everything: visual and auditory stimulus to induce them to yawn,” Dr Senju, told BBC News.

Under the second condition, the same procedure was followed, but this time the stranger opened and closed their mouth but did not yawn.

This was a precaution to ensure that dogs were not responding to an open mouth, explained Dr Senju.

The team found that 21 out of 29 dogs yawned when the stranger in front of them yawned – on average, dogs yawned 1.9 times. By contrast, no dogs yawned during the non-yawning condition.

The researchers believe that these results are the first evidence that dogs have the capacity to empathise with humans; although the team could not rule out stress-induced yawning – they hope to in future studies.

Dogs have lived cheek by jowl with humans for millennia

“Dogs have a very special capacity to read human communication. They respond when we point and when we signal,”.

Read the full story here

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