The intelligent and affectionate animal like dogs, according to science

Dogs are recognized as man’s best friend, for their companionship and empathy. However, they are not the only animals capable of developing bonds with those who care for them. In fact, one study found that there is a pet -even if not in company- with the same characteristics as dogs.

It’s about goat, the artiodactyl mammal domesticated around the 8th millennium BC C. for its meat and milk. These animals are capable of developing the same empathy, having the same intelligence and adapting their behaviors in the presence of humans just like dogs.

The goat, the animal with dog-like behaviors

According to a study published in the journal Biology letters In 2016, goats are capable of change their behavior and their vision towards human beings ask for help. This feature had previously only been observed in dogs and horses.

For this study, researchers trained 34 adult goats, 17 females and 17 castrated males, removed a plastic lid placed over a box, with a reward inside. The research team had the animal perform this operation to experiment several times, and in the last stage they changed the technique so that it was impossible to open the box.

When the animals noticed that they could not complete this task, They directed their gaze in the direction of the experiment researcher and they changed their behavior depending on where the human’s point of view was, whether in front of them or from behind.

“The goats show a visual orienting behavior directed by humans similarly to the referential and intentional communication shown in hominoids, which is also evident in companion animals such as dogs and horses. “This calls into question the idea that a specific type of domestication, namely selection for companionship, led to the development of complex communication with humans in domesticated animals,” the study concluded.

But that’s not all, goats also have the ability to generate empathy with human beings and with one’s own species. Research published in Direct science determined that these mammals are capable of recognize facial expressions and they react to it.

The study was carried out with three photographs of faces of family members who They showed different emotions, negative and positive. These images were shown to several dairy goats, who looked at them for three seconds and changed their posture in front of them. It turns out that these ungulates lent him pay more attention to the negative side than to the positive sidepositioning the ears forward for much longer.

Furthermore, another study by Frontiers in zoology discovered that these animals stand out tones of the human voice and they react differently to the positive tone.

“When the valence of the call variant changed, the goats were more likely to look at the source of the sound, indicating that they could distinguish the calls based on their valence,” the research explained. And I continue: “the heartbeat variability tending to be older in the habituation and readjustment phases, when positive versus negative calls were played.