Me, I wear my emotions on my mug. And if I can’t get my message across through my expression, I can talk. I have several varieties of specialized barks (“I heard the grass growing”) and whines (“I really gotta go”) and hard-to-describe squeals (“Pet me. Pet me now.”). Some dogs keep it a bit closer…

As any dog owner can tell you, dogs appear to empathize with their human pals. This empathy can extend to the point that some therapy dogs even seem to take on the emotions of their sick or distressed human charges, an effect called emotional contagion” according to a new paper in the latest issue of…