How Animals Grieve Read Online Free PDF Page B

actions, and moods, the conditions are right for one to mourn when the other dies.
    Almost no scientific research has been carried out on dog grief. A recent wave of studies into aspects of dog cognition, however, supports the notion that dogs are incredibly sensitive to others around them. In a series of experiments, psychologists Brian Hare and Michael Tomasello found that domestic dogs outperform chimpanzees at comprehension of human gestures. The test they describe is beautiful in its simplicity: A person hides a desired food or object in one of several opaque containers, then points or directs her gaze toward the baited container. The question is, will a watching animal follow this cue and head straight for the correct container in order to grab its reward?
    If the animal in question is a human, and over fourteen months of age, the answer is consistently yes. The same is true for domestic dogs, who make a beeline to the container concealing the treat. In fact, dogs succeed even when the experimenter complicates the task by standing a meter away from the containers and pointing with the cross-lateral hand, or pointing to the right container while walking toward the wrong one.
    Chimpanzees don’t do nearly as well on these tests. The key to success for at least some nonhuman animals seems not to be pure brain power, but instead a lengthy period of mutual attunement with humans. Thanks to their history of domestication, dogs have had extensive “practice” reading the movements of human companions. DNA science, together with archaeological research, tells us that dogs and humans initiated this process over ten thousand years ago, maybe even as early as fifteen thousand years ago. The first domesticated dogs probably came from China or the Middle East, but the human-dog bond in prehistory was also widespread across Europe and Africa. When the first settlers crossed the Bering Strait into North America, they had dogs as their companions.
    This exquisitely attuned dog-human relationship, set in motion by the domestication process, also affects what happens between dogs themselves. Of course, dogs evolved from wolves, animals with strong, pack-oriented social tendencies. The combination of biology and socialization has a powerful effect. In this regard, Hare and Tomasello report an exciting result: On the hidden-object test, dogs do equally well whether cues are provided by humans or by other dogs. Though I’m not certain how dogs indicate to other dogs the baited container, the take-home point is clear: Dogs are incredibly attentive to other dogs. What sometimes gets overlooked in research like Hare and Tomasello’s is the emotion that may be woven through such acute dog-to-dog attention.
    From the dozens of stories that have come my way about dogs mourning other dogs, a powerful trio of characteristics can be distilled: love, loyalty, and smarts. Often, the tales are shared by a person who loved a dog who has died and now worries about the emotional health of a surviving dog in the household. Such was the case with a member of my own family.
    For sixteen years, Connie Hoskinson lived with a tiny silky terrier named Sydney. Connie and Sydney strolled through their suburban Virginia neighborhood for forty-five minutes every day, greeting friends and neighbors as they went. Back at the house, though, there was no question but that Sydney preferred the company of Connie’s husband George.
    When George’s health began to fail, Sydney’s devotion only increased. Near the end of his life, George could no longer rise easily from the sofa or bed, and Sydney altered his activities to stay with him. He brought his toys directly to George’s lap, timed his naps to George’s so the two would curl up together, and followed George to the bathroom, returning to lie down only when George did.
    Then George died. The change was a tough one for Sydney, as it was for Connie. “For almost a year,” Connie told me, “Sydney didn’t