Can a Dog Die From a Broken Heart

Then tin a dog really dice of a cleaved heart?

Did a cleaved heart impale Theo, the flop-sniffing spaniel, who died in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan soon after losing his handler, Lance Corporal Liam Tasker? Well, I certainly know dogs mourn their owners when they die.

I once witnessed a neighbour's sheepdog expect for weeks, then months stretching into years, for the return of her master. She sabbatum on the pathway outside his house, the identify where he would normally whistle for her to come with him, rooted to the spot. She couldn't exist tempted by nutrient, either by me or her principal'south widow, to go for a walk.

She but waited patiently for the man she loved who would never, alas, come home. 60 minutes after hr, 24-hour interval after twenty-four hours she waited, coming into the house but at night for a repast and to slumber earlier venturing out onto the pathway again in the morning.

Shut:Lance Corporal Liam Tasker with his army dog Theo in the war zone

And there are endless other stories too, like that of the legendary Skye terrier, Greyfriars Bobby, who formed an extraordinarily close relationship in the 19th century with his owner John Gray, a night watchman for the Edinburgh Urban center Constabulary.

Afterward two years together, John Grayness died of tuberculosis and was cached in the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in the Old Town of Edinburgh.

Bobby, who survived Grey by 14 years, is said to have spent the residuum of his life sitting on his master's grave — leaving for  meals at a nearby restaurant — and became the subject of biographies, a novel, two films and a commemorative statue.

Last month a mongrel called Leao was photographed lying mournfully by his possessor's makeshift grave in southward-e Brazil later the flooding at that place that killed more than 600 people.

Working: 50/Cpl Liam Tasker, with Theo, training in Camp Bastion

The tragic case of a xiv-year-one-time Jack Russell called Squeak fabricated headlines, as well, in 2002 when he refused to move from the mutilated trunk of his possessor, Terry Ford, after he was murdered in Republic of zimbabwe. Squeak somewhen had to be carried away by an animate being rescue charity.

The truth is that dogs and other pets really do grieve for their owners, and in some cases the consequences can be fatal.

Animal psychologist Roger Mugford, who has brash the Queen on her often quarrelsome corgis, knows a number of cases in which pets have died of grief.

'The most recent concerned a spaniel owned by an quondam gentleman who died,' he says. 'The dog, which had been perfectly healthy, pined for him and was expressionless within three weeks.'

The most likely caption, says Dr Mugford, is that dogs — which are very sociable animals — suffer from a kind of low which inhibits not only their appetites but as well their allowed organisation. This makes them susceptible to infection and can be fatal.

Grief: The story of Greyfriars Bobby became the subject of films, including 'The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby' (2006) starring Oliver Golding and canine co-star Bobby the west highland terrier

'It is highly unusual,' adds Dr Mugford. 'Dogs have an extraordinary survival instinct and, although we might non like to believe it, most would quickly adapt to new owners.

'But in some intense relationships — especially like the 1 between Theo and his possessor in Afghanistan where they are working together in very stressful atmospheric condition — the dog and his owner can become all too inseparable.'

Scientists are beginning to study this honey (or zipper, as they then dryly phone call it) between domestic dog and human being using a special procedure called the Ainsworth Strange Situation test.

It was originally used on babies. The infants are separated for a brusk period from their mother, and their attachment is measured by their behaviour when abandoned by her and when picked up once again on return.

Elephants clearly feel emotional pain. Should one of the herd dice, its elephant family volition gather solemnly around the trunk and gently touch on the body with their trunks

It's now been adapted past Italian researchers for dogs, and canis familiaris owners amongst us won't be surprised to hear that the dogs behaved rather like the babies — though with unlike doggy gestures. Left lone, they searched for their 'lost' owner, trying to follow them out of the room, jumping at the door and even whimpering or howling.

Some dogs get so closely attached to their owners that if they are left alone they get berserk, tearing upwards the furniture, or fifty-fifty trying to dig themselves out through the front door. Their owners may come dwelling to find them with bleeding paws.

Information technology'southward chosen 'separation distress,' and tin can prove a difficult problem to solve — fifty-fifty for dog behaviourists — and any punishment simply makes these poor dogs even more desolate and frantic.

One of the leading scientists in this field, neuroscientist Professor Jaak Panksepp, faced great difficulty getting funds for his research several years agone because the idea of testing the emotions of animals was thought to be unscientific.

Sorrow: Creature psychologist Roger Mugford, who has advised the Queen on her dogs, knows a number of cases in which pets have died of grief

However, he persisted with his studies and has now mapped animal brains and constitute that emotions such as happiness, sadness and separation anxiety are hardwired into them.

So information technology is non just dogs that mourn like this. Cats do too — as I can vouch from my own experience. I piece of work every bit a volunteer for the charity Cats Protection, and information technology is deeply upsetting to run into the elderly cats come into care, whose owners have just died or been taken into a nursing home.

For the first few days they sit immobile, every bit if stunned at the loss. It can have weeks before they fully recover whatsoever joy in life.

Then, too, do elephants clearly feel emotional pain. Should 1 of the herd die, its elephant family volition gather solemnly effectually the body and gently touch the torso with their trunks.

For several years afterwards, if they are marching past where the corpse lies they will impact the whitened bones. Elephants never forget, as information technology were.

Mourning: Leao sits side by side to the grave of her owner, Cristina Maria Cesario Santana, who died in catastrophic landslides in Brazil in January

We also know that elephant babies who lose their mothers to poachers prove all the signs of frantic distress. The orphans that are taken to the sanctuary run by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Africa are oftentimes sunk in depression for weeks. A personal keeper has to sleep with them at dark and then that they are not left alone.

I wonder if Theo the dog was treated like this, or was he, mayhap, only put in a kennel to grieve till his heart broke?

Fifty-fifty magpies have been seen 'burying' their dead. In 2009, one of the earth'south foremost researchers into beast emotions, Dr Marking Bekoff, reported seeing a group of magpies react to the body of a swain bird that had been striking by a car.

2 of the magpies gently pecked at the corpse with their beaks. So a couple of the birds went off and fetched some grass which they laid by the body. The birds 'stood vigil' for a few moments and then flew off.

In a particularly horrible experiment carried out in the Fifties in America, monkeys suffered severe emotional distress when they were forced to inflict pain on each other.

I monkey was trained to printing a lever every 20 seconds. If he stopped pressing it, a neighbouring monkey was given an electrical shock.

The monkey in control of the lever became and then stressed past his horrible role that after 23 days of this he died of breadbasket ulcers — so stressed had information technology get that its tummy acidity had risen enormously. What a pity that the scientist concerned wasn't inflicted past stomach ulcers also!

In 2005, a keeper at Boston Zoo reported that the expiry of a gorilla called Babs had a desolate effect on her long-term mate who was left howling and tried to put a chip of celery — Babs'south favourite food —  in her hand and to wake her up.

There is abundant scientific evidence at present, as well as any number of anecdotal examples, that animals badly mourn the loss of a loved 1, and that pets are often overcome with grief when their owners pass on.

The surprise is not that a domestic dog can die of a cleaved heart — as in poor Theo'southward case — but that so many humans still dismiss the notion of animals expressing emotion as sentimental, anthropomorphic rubbish.

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Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1362789/So-dog-really-die-broken-heart.html

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