Simple test may help a person find out if their dog understands their emotions or not

Most pet owners try to shower their canine friends with as much love as they have but sometimes they might wonder if their dog loves them back or not. Affectionate licks or your dog waiting at the door might be a typical sign but how can you be sure of it? If your dog yawns when you yawn, they might like you as much as you like them, per the American Kennel Club. The phenomenon known as contagious yawning is a sign of empathy in an animal or a person.

"It’s reasonable to assume that dogs who yawn when their owners do are more emotionally connected to them. They understand us in ways that other animals don’t, including great apes," Dr. Brian Hare, founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center at Duke University told the outlet. According to a study by the University of Tokyo carried out by Todai researchers, dogs, just like humans are more connected to the person they contagiously yawn with. It is not just anxiety-related behavior, as per the study. Beings who yawn simultaneously understand each other better. Although the ability to yawn has been linked to empathy, there are also chances that it is just a sign of distress.

The researchers studied 25 dogs by having both their owners and strangers yawn at them. They found out that dogs could catch yawns from people and it happened more often when the person was their owner because of the emotional bond they might share with them. The team also checked the dog's heart rates and were able to rule out anxiety as a cause for the yawning. "Our findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning is modulated by affective components of the behavior and may indicate that rudimentary forms of empathy could be present in domesticated dogs," Teresa Romero and her team wrote in the paper. The study points out that dogs might have the ability to understand human emotions and social cues.

The ability to yawn simultaneously was first studied in humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, baboons and eventually expanded to dogs. However, the ability to catch yawns does not develop immediately, as per Indiana Public Media. Human children learn to yawn as a reaction to yawning when they are about 4 years old. On the other hand, as per a study conducted with 35 dogs between 4 months and 14 months of age showed that dogs developed the ability at or after 7 months old. Some dogs in the study also responded by lying down and getting ready to sleep as a response to a yawn.

Apart from dogs, budgerigar birds are the only non-primates that show yawning behavior, as per Answers in Genesis. Interestingly, dogs don't yawn in response to other dogs and only do so in response to humans. “If contagious yawning indeed is related to the capacity for empathy it could become a powerful tool to explore the root of empathy in animal evolution by studying cross-species contagious yawning. Therefore, there is a need for further experimentation on this issue, especially in non-primate species," the study conducted by the University of Tokyo stated. Further research into the phenomenon will also help scientists understand the evolutionary origin of contagious yawning as per the study.