Dogs who watch their owners arguing among themselves will try to comfort the person they believe is the victim and They will avoid the aggressor, concludes a new study.
Researchers have also found that pets showed a stress-related behavior when witnessing the fight, even if it was not directed at them.
The study, carried out in University of Buenos Airesstudied 23 dogs of different breeds, including a Siberian husky, a border collie, a poodle and a dachshund.
They then asked two members of each family to pretend to be fighting in their own home. while his pet watched.
Both owners attempted to seize an object placed between them, before the ‘aggressor’ began shouting at the ‘victim’, taking possession of the object, looking at him angrily and waving his arm.
Later, in the so-called post-conflict phase, both owners sat without looking at each other. Investigators recorded the scenes to be able to analyze the behavior of the animals.
“During the conflict phase, the dogs looked more at the victims than at the aggressors and stayed close to themwhich is called affiliative behavior“said the principal investigator, Dr. Mariana Bentosela.
“During the post-conflict stage, the dogs preferred to approach the victim first rather than the aggressor. Furthermore, showed a lower rate of contact with the aggressorwhich can be interpreted as avoidance,” he continues.
Bentosela and his team suggested that dogs see humans as part of their group and that alleviating the victim’s discomfort may be a “conflict management strategy that promotes group cohesion” and is an “an essential part of their bond with humans.”
The dogs watching the arguments also showed more stress-related behaviors, such as crouching, ears down, breathing rapidly with their mouths open, lto tail down or yawn.
It could be that the dogs were experiencing “emotional contagion” by humans or were afraid that the aggression would be redirected toward them, the researchers wrote in their study, published in the journal Ethology.
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