Dog Unto Others: Canines Have Sense of Fairness

Like humans and chimpanzees, dogs seem to expect fairness in their dealings with humans. When two dogs sitting next to each other complete the same action — shaking paws in this case — but don't receive the same reward, the jilted dog stops playing along.

"I think it's an important finding because it goes beyond primates," said evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, author of a forthcoming book on animal morality, Wild Justice, who was not involved with the study. "It calls attention to the fact that animals are a heck of a lot smarter and more emotional than we give them credit for.

The new study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is part of a growing body of research showing that many social animals, including dogs, wolves and marmosets, have emotions previously considered unique to humans. While biologists have long thought that mammals experience primary emotions like fear, more recent studies have found strong evidence that a range of animals also feel more nuanced, secondary emotions like a sense of fairness. …