Dogs and cats perceive the death of their companions

Like humans, dogs and cats suffer, perceive and feel the loss due to the death of a companion dog or cat or someone with whom they have had a close and daily bond, manifesting behavior that we could well define as mourning or mourning.

Very recent studies have succeeded in deciphering the keys to a behavior that was not long ago believed and held to be the exclusive heritage of a human being, thought and structured by the prevailing society as a superior being and as the only one capable of feeling and suffering.

The empirical verification has been carried out by any of us as guardians of dogs or cats, just observing that in the face of the loss of a loved and close living being, they behave in a way or way very similar to what we could describe as mourning or mourning.

This type of behavior has also been observed in wild animals, particularly in gregarious and social animals.

Thus we can see that elephants are famous for their rites at the time of the death of a congener and also wolves, over which true ceremonies related to the death of their companions have transcended, the most famous of which is the posthumous farewell of the naturalist Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente by the wolf pack to which he had dedicated the last years of his research life.

Close kinship and affective closeness are the characteristics that define the appearance and frequency of this type of behavior.

Our companion animals, the dog or the cat, have no blood relationship with us, but nevertheless, they constitute what is now called a multispecies family, a group or group recreated by humans over the centuries where the decision to live together has most often been one-sided, but the bond is very close. .

Faced with the death of some of the animals in a house, those who survive change their mood and their daily routines, which happens more intensely the closer the relationship has been.

In those homes where there is more than one animal, not all of them will suffer the loss of a companion with the same intensity. The attitude is in direct dependence and proportion to the individual's idiosyncrasy and to the affective closeness that is not always the same in each case.

The research allowed us to establish that what an animal feels in its emotionality is the loss itself, the absence and not the real and concrete perception of death. Although some continue to argue that animals can perceive the death of the other, “mourning” and “mourning” only manifest it in the face of the loss of a close companion and in the face of changing daily routine.

They then react to the absence of the concrete relationship of someone who is affectively close rather than to death itself, since the behavior does not change whether or not the surviving animal has seen the body of its dead companion.

Dogs are rituals, routine and habitual (habit-forming), therefore, when a link in these routines disappears, behavior becomes disoriented and leads to bereavement or similar behaviors. On the other hand, the disappearance of a partner can be for them the instinctive harbinger of a latent and close risk, which sharpens the alert position by increasing stress and enabling these behavioral changes.

*Prof. Dr. Juan Enrique Romero @drromerook is a veterinary physician. Specialist in University Education. Master's Degree in Psychoimmunoneuroendocrinology. Former Director of the Small Animal School Hospital (UNLPAM). University Professor at several Argentine universities. International lecturer.

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