Dogs Act Jealously Even When They Don’t See Their Rival.

Summary: Dogs are one of humanity’s most-beloved animal companions. They share our homes and seem to reciprocate our affections. But could this emotional bond extend into feelings of jealousy? To help answer that question, a team of researchers gauged the reactions of a group of dogs when their owners appeared to shower attention on a perceived rival. 

Past surveys have shown that more than 80% of dog owners report observing jealous behaviors from their dogs—vocalizations, agitated behavior, pulling on a leash—when they give attention to other dogs. New research published in the journal Psychological Science supports these observations and finds that dogs also exhibit jealous behaviors when they merely imagine that their owner is interacting with a potential rival, in this case, a highly realistic artificial dog.

“Research has supported what many dog owners firmly believe—dogs exhibit jealous behavior when their human companion interacts with a potential rival,” said Amalia Bastos with the University of Auckland and lead author on the paper. “We wanted to study this behavior more fully to determine if dogs could, like humans, mentally represent a situation that evoked jealousy.”

Full article HERE

I firmly believe that what people see and interpret as jealousy in dogs, IS NOT!!    I stick to my views about all this.

I agree Mamabas, it’s a complicated emotion and dogs just aren’t capable of it (just like they don’t experience remorse or guilt despite how people are always saying “He knows he’s done wrong.” Nope, he knows you’re feeling negative about something and he’s trying to appease you.)

I suspect it’s either guarding behaviour or simply a desire to join in the fuss.

It's resource guarding in my eyes.  I provide the food so he's telling others to "jog-on".  It really becomes apparent when handing out treats.  He has no issue taking treats from other humans when there are dogs around but very unhappy if another dog wants a treat from me.

Anthromorphising of animal behaviour is really the basis of so much misunderstanding & misinterpretation by some so called "behaviourists"

I cringe when I hear the words"jealousy", "love" etc when applied to animals, these are human traits, yes dogs/cats etc form close bonds with their owners, but the concept of human emotions is definitely alien to most pet animals.

Resource guarding makes sense to me. Although we usually only notice that behaviour when it is causing an issue   ie food .
I agree with Ann we like to anthropomorphise their behavioirs either by choice or subconsciously

"It is too early to say whether dogs experience jealousy as we do, but it is now clear that they react to jealousy-inducing situations"

Fascinating