Fido's not just yawning – he's empathising

Published on 05/08/2008 21:39

IF YOUR dog yawns in your company, don't worry – it's not because they're bored of you, they're just showing you empathy, researchers said yesterday.

This is the finding of a scientific study which found dogs – like humans – experience contagious yawning.

The research, published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, has a serious purpose, helping experts understand the evolution of relationships between species.

As part of the study, researchers from Birkbeck College, University of London, exposed 29 dogs to yawning humans in lab conditions. All but eight of the dogs also started yawning as a result.

Psychologist Dr Atsushi Senju, who conduced the research with colleagues at Birkbeck, said: "Dogs have amazing capacity to read and react to human social and communicative cues, which is thought to have evolved over last 15,000 years."