Empathy’s for the Dogs

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Yawn, and so will your dog. A recent study published in the journal Biology Letters found dogs yawn when humans do, suggesting that canines may have the capacity for empathy. In their experiment, researchers from the University of London yawned at 29 dogs. Seventy-two percent yawned back—a higher frequency than humans, who typically yawn back 45 to 60 percent of the time. When the researchers simply opened their mouths wide, no dogs yawned. The...