Dogs Hold Grudges Especially Against People Who Are Mean To Their Owners

Dogs can show their loyalty to their human companions by showing their dislike towards people who are mean to their owners, a new study finds. According to a report from Fox 6 News, the Japanese study finds that dogs will even refuse food given by people who ignored their masters.

Researchers from the Kyoto University, led by Kazuo Fujita, studied on three groups with 18 dogs. In the study, dog owners were asked to open a box in the presence of two people that the dogs have never met before.

For the first group, owners asked help from one of the two strangers, but were refused help. The second group asked for help and was given. The third group served as the control group and there was no interaction between owners and the two people.

For every group of participants, one of the two people acting as strangers was given the role of a neutral observer. This stranger neither refused nor gave help to the owner.

After acting out the scenarios, the experiment revealed that majority of dogs--11 out of 18--refused treats given by the stranger who treated the owners badly. Inquisitr reports that the results also showed an interesting response dogs have towards the neutral strangers, in which they are likely to accept treats from the neutral strangers.

"We discovered for the first time that dogs make social and emotional evaluations of people regardless of their direct interest," said Fujita in the Fox 6 News report. He adds that a dog’s ability to act against self-interest provides more evidence that they have a cooperative social nature.

In the new study, dogs have proven that they will support their masters in every way and according to Inquisitr, the researchers are eager to perform the same study on cats to assess their loyalty to their owners. The study will be published later in June in the journal Animal Behaviour, Yahoo News reports.

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