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Dec 8, 2008 | 5
Scientists have confirmed what pet owners have always suspected: our pooches may pout when they sense another pup is getting favorable treatment.
Researchers at the University of Vienna in Austria report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that dogs may be like our human best buds: they get jealous if they feel we're treating another dog better.
Fredericke Range and her colleagues did a series of experiments with dogs that indicated they were happy to "shake hands" whether or not they were rewarded –at least for a while. But that changed if one pup got a treat and the other got nada.
For a long time, scientists believed a sense of equity was a purely human trait. Then in 2003 researchers discovered that capuchin monkeys complied with requests in return for cucumber slices, but got their backs up when they saw another monkey getting grapes, which they perceived as sweeter, better treats.
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