Sweetest thing you’ll see today: Family fakes ear meds for jealous dog

my dog has ear medicine she needs and the other one also thinks he needs it too.. nobody has the heart to tell him it’s pretend.. pic.twitter.com/Vshe7dhl3b

— chloe copley (@chloecopley_05) September 12, 2018

Okay so one of Chloe’s dogs needs ear medication. We’re not sure why, but really, it’s not important.

What IS important, is that the pup’s sibling clearly wants in on the ear meds action. Mostly because it comes with a nice, vigorous, post-squirt ear massage.

So his parents, doing what we’d likely all do, oblige the pupper with a “fake” administration of the meds with the supplementary two-handed ear squeeze.

And everyone’s happy.

Especially us. Because we love this video.

Do dogs get jealous?

According to science: yes.

Back in 2014, researchers at the University of California discovered that dogs were far more likely to snap and push at their owners if they felt they were being excluded from their affection.

“Our study suggests not only that dogs do engage in what appear to be jealous behaviors but also that they were seeking to break up the connection between the owner and a seeming rival,” said lead researcher Professor Christine Harris in an article published by the Telegraph.

“Many people have assumed that jealousy is a social construction of human beings – or that it’s an emotion specifically tied to sexual and romantic relationships. Our results challenge these ideas, showing that animals besides ourselves display strong distress whenever a rival usurps a loved one’s affection.”

Adapting a test previously used for six-month-old babies to canines, University of California researchers monitored the reaction of 36 dogs in their own homes when their owners ignored them in favor of a stuffed dog, which could bark and wag its tail, or a bucket with a Halloween design.

The dogs were filmed and the video rated for a variety of aggressive, disruptive and attention-seeking behavior and found that the pups were roughly twice as likely to make contact with their owner — touching or pushing — when he or she was giving love and affection to the plush dog than when exhibiting the same behaviors at the plastic bucket.

Amy Drew

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