Dogs can emphaise with humans!

An interesting report from BBC proves that dogs can empathise with humans.

A study has revealed that dogs tend to copy human yawning that goes to prove that 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.
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Read the full research