A French bulldog. Image: Edwin Tan via Getty Images
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Of course, there is a danger of bias in self-reported surveys as owners might inflate the negative behaviors of their dogs, project their own feelings onto their companions, or provoke negative reactions in their dogs due to their own grieving processes and changes in mood. To counteract these types of inconsistencies, Pirrone and her colleagues cross-referenced the reports and performed a statistical analysis to assess whether participants were genuinely witnessing grief-like responses in their dogs. “This particular structure of the questionnaire, and the statistical analyses we run, allowed us to identify when participants’ responses concerning a dog’s changes were more likely to be influenced by their own perceptions and emotions,” she explained. “As for many aspects, therefore, it was possible to make this influence emerge or, on the contrary, to exclude it, making it more likely that the reported changes were real.”One particular issue that needed to be vetted, for instance, is the disparity in responses between men and women. Only 42 men participated in the study, compared with 384 women. Pirrone notes that this gender difference consistently crops up in web surveys about animals and human-animal relationships, indicating that women are much more likely to participate in these studies.“This has been the case also in all our previous studies in which we investigated pet ownership using online surveys,” Pirrone explained. “Research exploring the role that gender plays in people’s attitude towards animals has found that women tend to be more empathic and to have a higher concern for animal welfare compared with men. Thus, our finding could be at least partially explained by females being more willing to fill out online surveys on pets than males for their particular sensitivity to animals’ issues.”The study’s overall results suggest that dogs do grieve their fellow canines, though much more research into the topic needs to be conducted to confirm that assumption. To that end, Pirrone and her colleagues hope to build on this study by assessing the possible drivers of mourning behaviors in dogs. “We are already working on the next step of the project, which aims to confirm that the dogs are responding to the ‘loss’ of an affiliate, and hopefully to even discover whether dogs are only responding to such loss, or even to their ‘death’ per se,” Pirrone said.“The understanding of behavioral patterns after loss in non-human animals can be helpful in recognizing these animals’ emotional needs,” she concluded. “The results of this research tell us that domestic dogs may react negatively when a companion conspecific dies. Recognizing and being able to predict these reactions and underlying emotions allows us to identify the most effective strategies to support them and their owner in coping with these difficult circumstances.”