Harvard Dogs Comfort Crying Strangers

In recent Harvard experiments, researchers observed family dogs responding to humans who pretended to cry or be in pain in a lab setting. Many of the dogs approached the distressed person, made eye contact, and tried to nuzzle or physically engage with them, even when the crying human was a stranger. The team interpreted these reactions as spontaneous empathy, suggesting that some dogs naturally try to “help” when they think a human is suffering.

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