Green Eyed Monster

Jealousy, the green eyed monster, (lookit up), has now reared it’s ugly head in the most disturbing place. Yep, your dog is jealous. He’s jealous of the better food you eat, he hates it when your friends hug you, he wants to drive your car, he wishes he had an Iphone and he hates to see you leave for work when you could be taking him for a walk instead. Research by Friederike Range and her colleagues at the University of Vienna, Austria, has shown that the little beasties we are so fond of, and the big goofy ones too, get frenzied with envy at all those little snubs we thought they didn’t notice. Testing the slavering hounds by asking them to shake paws with the researchers and offering them nothing in return, then doing so in the company of a new mutt who was rewarded for performing the task, it was noticed that the unrewarded fleabag became obstreperous and less willing to shake when he noticed the compensation make to the new pest. Dogs who weren’t rewarded became insanely jealous, feverish with rage, snapping out and nipping the scientists, buying guns and stockpiling ammo in their little igloo kennels [AMAZONPRODUCTS asin=”B0002DI4I0″], posting hundreds of photos of the researchers with mustaches and crazy eyes drawn on them and leaving little piles of detritus on the hallway carpet. It was only after rewarding the affronted canine subjects of the study with cans of Dinty Moore  beef stew that they returned to their docile, lovable selfs, putting their fuzzy heads on the scientists laps and looking up with doleful eyes for forgiveness.