London - Dogs are man’s best friend for a reason – and that is because they are able to tune in to their owner’s moods, scientists claim.
Italian researchers found that dogs possess a key “building-block” of empathy which allows them to mimic emotional behaviour.
The team from the University of Pisa studied 49 dogs as they played together in a park.
Their owners were interviewed as to how well their pet knew the dogs they were playing with.
In tests of two key playful behaviours, dogs were found rapidly to copy each other. The mimicry happened more often when the dogs were well-known to each other, the researchers report in the journal Open Science.
Lead researcher Dr Elisabetta Palagi said: “I’m confident dogs can in some sense ‘catch’ the emotion of humans – especially their owners.” But she added: “I wouldn’t expect to find mimicry in cats. Dogs are a social species, while cats descend from a solitary species.”
Daily Mail