They sometimes mope, but a dog’s emotions are a mystery. If you’re inclined to believe that dogs grieve over their fallen masters, there are plenty of anecdotes to support your view. Dogs sometimes wail plaintively at funerals, refuse to leave the cemetery, and even track down a deceased owner’s grave weeks after the death. The ASPCA conducted a study showing that two-thirds of dogs experience lethargy and loss of appetite after another dog in the household passes, suggesting that dogs are capable of mourning fellow canines, if not human companions. (Prozac is prescribed to deal with intractable canine grief.) Skeptics, however, believe they can explain these stories without attributing humanlike emotions to canines. Unfortunately, the only way to surmise a dog’s emotional state is through its behavior, which is variable and open to interpretation. How you answer this question has more to do with your preferred view of the inner lives of dogs than the evidence itself, which is inconclusive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement
The photograph of Figo, the police dog at his master’s funeral, is relatively weak evidence of grief. Dogs are remarkably responsive to subtle human cues. In a 2005 study, food was placed in one of several opaque boxes. When a human pointed, gazed, or nodded in the direction of the box containing the food, most dogs picked up on the signal and found the treat. (Chimpanzees perform significantly worse than dogs in such tests.) It’s entirely possible that curiosity, rather than grief, motivated Figo to inspect the box that was receiving so much attention from the assembled mourners. His behavior away from the funeral, such as his eating habits and energy levels, would be more indicative of mourning than a single snapshot. Advertisement
Dogs who sit endlessly at a master’s gravesite may be waiting for him to return, rather than mourning his death. Dogs can be very stubborn when it comes to accepting their master is gone. An Akita named Hachiko was renowned in Japan for walking to and from the local train station on his master’s commuting schedule for 10 years after he died. (Apes accept death more quickly: Some have attempted to revive their fallen companions, only to howl and pound the walls of their enclosures when they appear to realize the efforts are in vain.) Advertisement
When a dog recognizes that its owner has died, the results aren’t always touching. In 2011, seven dogs lived for more than a week by feeding off of the remains of their deceased owners. Both dogs and cats, in fact, occasionally feast on their owners’ dead bodies. Skeptics point to this as evidence that dogs are quick to move on once they’re certain an owner is dead, but it’s possible that some dogs are simply more attached than others to their owners.
You might not look at your beloved Bella or Buddy the same way after reading this.By
In 1997, a forensic examiner in Berlin reported one of his more unusual cases in the journal Forensic Science International. A 31-year-old man had retired for the evening to the converted garden shed behind his motherâs house, where he lived with his German shepherd. Around 8:15 p.m., neighbors heard a gunshot from the direction of the shed.
Forty-five minutes later, the manâs mother and neighbours found him dead of a gunshot wound to the mouth, a Walther pistol under his hands and a farewell note on a table. Most of his face and neck were goneâand there were tooth marks around the edges of the wounds. A half-full bowl of dog food sat on the floor.
The German shepherd was calm and responded to police commands. On the way to an animal sanctuary, the dog vomited some of its ownerâs tissue, including skin with still-recognisable beard hair.
No one tracks the frequency of pets scavenging their expired ownersâ bodies, but dozens of such case reports appear in forensic science journals over the last 20 years or so, and theyâre the best window we have into a situation dreaded by pet owners: dying alone and being eaten.
Iâve reviewed about 20 of these published cases, along with a 2015 study that pulled together 63 cases of indoor scavenging. Some of the patterns are surprising, and they open up fascinating questions about why pets might be motivated to eat the dead.
Here are some of the most common misconceptions about post-mortem pet behaviour and what the available forensic evidence reveals.
Will my dog miss me if I die?
A study from the ASPCA suggests that two-thirds of dogs show symptoms of separation anxiety when their owners have passed away, including whining, loss of appetite and depression. … Many stories show dogs’ unwavering loyalty, though not necessarily traditional mourning, for their human owners after they die.
Dogs have a heightened sense of smell and energy, which enables them to get an entire story with just a scent and interpret human emotions before humans do. Aside from these, they can detect human illness and death as well.
Numerous studies in Spiritual Psychology … shows that dogs do indeed have souls, and once a dog bonds to a human, its soul attaches to the human’s soul and upon death, goes where the human soul goes. … They imply that animals may have the “breath of life,” but not an immortal soul in the same sense as man’s.
The moment a dog dies in front of its owner
Any pet lover will tell you: its excruciating to watch your adorable furball friends suffer, especially when they might be ready to cross the rainbow bridge. But do dogs know theyre going to die? This is an existential question we struggle with as humans, too, and we dont have all the answers for ourselves, much less our canine buddies.
Still, there are clues to what dogs might be aware of and, more importantly, what we need to notice in the layers of their whole being to understand how we can help if theyre close to passing away.