Empathy and Animals

If you have a pet you need to know this. Veterinary professionals are feeling the heat – and paying a price. Forever veterinarians have had empathy for your pets, for wildlife, zoo and farm animals. Maybe now it’s time for you to understand the flip side.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on depression and suicide, but, as for veterinarians, it stands to reason that the enormous debt load of students coming out of school (and I mean monumental) may play a role, and it’s a good guess that the personality type of the average veterinary professional may be also a factor.

“As a profession, we are passionate; we are selfless; we try really hard and don’t accept defeat easily,” says Chicago veterinarian Dr. Natalie Marks. “We don’t leave the job at the office, it comes home with us. We take what we do to heart. Those are really excellent qualities. But that also leaves us emotionally vulnerable.”

 By: Steve Dale

The more empathy you have, the better you may be at decoding dogs’ facial expressions.

The most reliable indicator of how well you can understand your dog is just practice, plain and simple: People who have owned dogs, or spent time around dogs, are generally more adept at decoding canine cues than those who shy away from anything furry and slobbery. But according to a study in the journal PLOS ONE, experience alone does not a dog whisperer make: Your personality — and, specifically, how empathetic you are — plays a role, too.'

By Cari Romm

The more empathy you have, the better you may be at decoding dogs’ facial expressions.

The most reliable indicator of how well you can understand your dog is just practice, plain and simple: People who have owned dogs, or spent time around dogs, are generally more adept at decoding canine cues than those who shy away from anything furry and slobbery. But according to a study in the journal PLOS ONE, experience alone does not a dog whisperer make: Your personality — and, specifically, how empathetic you are — plays a role, too.'

By Cari Romm

People don’t always recognize compassion fatigue, says Jeff Boehm, executive director of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, the largest marine mammal rehabilitation center in the world. Sometimes referred to as empathy burnout or secondary trauma, the stress of the fatigue can manifest in depression or addiction.

Patricia Smith, founder of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, says most people don’t appreciate the strain this work causes. “Not only do [animal welfare workers] suffer daily in the work they do, they also often deal with the public’s total disregard and criticism of their work.

Shelter work was one of the most distressing and sorrow-filled work I’ve ever done.” One of Boehm’s biggest concerns is that if people don’t accept compassion fatigue as a very real issue, it—and its downstream psychic consequences—can’t be adequately treated.

Empathy plays an important role in interpersonal relationships and it also shapes the relationship between human and non-human species, affecting the way animals are treated and cared for.

Veterinarians play a key role in regard to animal welfare and, especially in companion animal practice, they have to care for "non-human patients" as well as for "human clients", showing sensitivity and empathy towards both. However, empathy in veterinary professionals has received very little attention so far.

This study investigated empathy towards animals and people in veterinarians, assessing whether and to what extent they are influenced by variables such as gender and length of service. In fact, these variables have been reported to affect empathy in a variety of caring professions.

sample of 514 adults completed a postal questionnaire measuring both their empathy with humans (using the Mehrabian and Epstein (1972) Questionnaire for the Measurement of Emotional Empathy) and their empathy with non-human animals (using the Animal Empathy Scale, developed for this study).

There was a significant, but modest correlation between the two scales (Kendall's tau=0.26, p<0.001), indicating that although the two types of empathy measure are in some way linked, they are unlikely to tap a single, unitary construct. 

We already have lots of data which shows that dogs read the emotions of familiar humans and show empathy and soothing behavior to people when they can (click here or here for more about that). Although we do know that dogs can form true friendships with other dogs (click here to read about that) it is strange to find that there has been little research on whether dogs actually show empathy for other dogs.

However some recent research from a team of investigators headed by Mylene Quervel-Chaumette from the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Vienna has now provided data showing that dogs do interpret and respond to signs of stress in other dogs, particularly those dogs that they are most familiar with. This research was published in the journal PLoS One.

Stanley Coren

Triple H Miniature Horse Rescue brought its non-equine rescues to Highland Acres to teach about the superpowers of empathy and compassion.

"By having the animals in, it's easier for them to make that connection between what is a bully, what is bullying and, with the animals here, how can it hurt them?" said Shannon Chaussee, Highland Acres teacher.

It wasn't just four-legged friends that did the teaching. Bullying survivor Kelsey Schulz described how her experiences with bullying affected her life.

Brian Rose of London Real shares an insightful hour with Jane discussing how we may improve our world with empathy and minimized consumption. Jane begins by sharing the encouragement and love from her mother which urged her to live her dreams. What follows is an extraordinary conversation discussing her life and our role as change-makers in society. All in all one awesome interview.

31:00  empathy

Do animals have emotions? This is a bigger question than it might appear to be. When an animal feels and cares for someone beyond itself, it’s more than just a cute story to post on Facebook. It’s an insight into the nature of what they really are.

Beyond even that, it might just be a glimpse into a redeeming part of our animal side that shows a basic decency that is built into the biology of life.

There are proven records of animals showing empathy. Several, in fact. Sometimes, animals take care of each other. Sometimes, they show outpourings of grief, and sometimes, they even take care of us. However they show it, though, there are several times when animals have shown empathy—and some of them are in ways that are so much like humans that they will shock you.

Mark Oliver

Rats given midazolam, an anti-anxiety medication, were less likely to free trapped companions because the drug lessened their empathy, according to a new study by University of Chicago neuroscientists.

The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, validates studies that show rats are emotionally motivated to help other rats in distress. In the latest study, rats treated with midazolam did not open the door to a restrainer device containing a trapped rat, although control rats routinely freed their trapped companions. Midazolam did not interfere with the rats' physical ability to open the restrainer door, however. In fact, when the restrainer device contained chocolate instead of a trapped rat, the test rats routinely opened the door. The findings show that the act of helping others depends on emotional reactions, which are dampened by the anti-anxiety medication.

Highly empathetic people experience the facial expression of dogs more intensely than their less empathetic peers. Researchers with the University of Helsinki and Aalto University found human empathy isn't limited to the human species. The ability to share and understand another's feelings is an expansive trait.

"Empathy affected assessments of dogs' facial expressions even more than previous experience of dogs, probably because the face is a biologically important stimulus for humans," Miiamaaria Kujala, a postdoctoral researcher at Helsinki, said in a news release. "Our earlier studies have showed, however, that when considering the entire body language of dogs, previous experience of dogs increases in importance."''Brooks Hays

Highly empathetic people experience the facial expression of dogs more intensely than their less empathetic peers.

Researchers with the University of Helsinki and Aalto University found human empathy isn't limited to the human species. The ability to share and understand another's feelings is an expansive trait.

"Empathy affected assessments of dogs' facial expressions even more than previous experience of dogs, probably because the face is a biologically important stimulus for humans," Miiamaaria Kujala, a postdoctoral researcher at Helsinki, said in a news release. "Our earlier studies have showed, however, that when considering the entire body language of dogs, previous experience of dogs increases in importance."

By Brooks Hays  

Is your vet empathetic toward your horse? Is she empathetic toward you? Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s feelings or understand what they’re going through from their perspective.

It can be a helpful trait for doctors so that they see their patients as fellow humans with complex emotional lives rather than just a list of conditions and symptoms to be treated.

Although their patients aren’t human, veterinarians can have empathy for the animals they treat, too. But a veterinary practice is about more than just treating animals; the owners of the animals being treated are part of the equation, and their concerns and perspective must be considered, too.

Leslie Potter 

Like primates, horses share many of the social and ethological characteristics believed to favor an ability to experience empathy.

Have you ever seen a horse quietly follow a calm buddy into the trailer but then become anxious when loaded alone? Or maybe you’ve been on a trail ride when one horse suddenly startles and spins, causing the others to startle as well.

These are examples of social buffering and emotional contagion—when one individual is affected by or shares the emotions of another—and provide evidence that horses possess the capacity for empathy.

By Robin Foster,

Do animals have emotions? This is a bigger question than it might appear to be. When an animal feels and cares for someone beyond itself, it’s more than just a cute story to post on Facebook. It’s an insight into the nature of what they really are. Beyond even that, it might just be a glimpse into a redeeming part of our animal side that shows a basic decency that is built into the biology of life.

There are proven records of animals showing empathy. Several, in fact. Sometimes, animals take care of each other. Sometimes, they show outpourings of grief, and sometimes, they even take care of us. However they show it, though, there are several times when animals have shown empathy — and some of them are in ways that are so much like humans that they will shock you.

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