Researchers at the University of Porto, in Portugal, explained that dogs have a quality called ‘emotional contagion,’ which allows them to respond even beyond the ability to react to people’s emotions.
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Empathy and Animals
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International News and Information about Empathy and Compassion with, by and for Animals - for more see: CultureOfEmpathy.com
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Edwin Rutsch
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Silva and Sousa argue that dogs have the capacity to empathize with humans for three main reasons: ‘Dogs originated from wolves, highly social animals that engage in cooperative activities and are believed to have some ability to empathize with their fellow wolves.
According to a recent study in the latest issue of ‘Biology Letters’, reported in the science press, dogs appear to empathize with us, to the point that some companion dogs even seem to take on the emotions of their sick or distressed human friends. Does my dog feel sad when I feel sad – is this a sensible question at all we could dare to ask in adult society with a straight face? This where the neurologists and the evolutionary psychologists must take over. 
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Dr Karine Silva said: ‘A study showing that dogs behave as “upset” as children when exposed to familiar people faking distress strongly suggests sympathetic concern. ‘Also, it has been reported that untrained dogs may be sensitive to human emergencies and may act appropriately to summon help, which, if true, suggests empathic perspective taking.’
The researchers believe there are three main reasons for dogs empathising with humans. Dogs originated from wolves which have developed empathy towards other species.
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Dr. Friederike Range of the University of Vienna in Austria led the research, which followed up on previous findings that canines empathize with people in mimicking yawns as well as changing the sound of their bark to match a human caregiver's regional accent. This study, however, was the first to show the animals' voluntary tendency to mirror human body movements, as they followed the actions of the humans in opening doors with their paws or teeth. In this research, the canines also attempted to imitate the people even when doing so was not rewarded.
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DOG owners have always known it. But academics yesterday made it official: Man’s best friend can understand and share feelings with humans.
And this empathy goes beyond just spotting a change in an owner’s mood. Dogs take it a step further and actually comfort owners when they are down.
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Empathy Rabbit says. 'Don't eat anything with a mother or that has a face'
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Dr. Frans de Waal argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies.
Social living requires empathy, which is especially evident in chimpanzees, as well as ways of bringing internal hostilities to an end. Every species of ape and monkey has its own protocol for reconciliation after fights, Dr. de Waal has found. If two males fail to make up, female chimpanzees will often bring the rivals together, as if sensing that discord makes their community worse off and more vulnerable to attack by neighbors. Or they will head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands.
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