Wild dogs may suffer from broken heart syndrome that causes them to grieve when they are separated from their pack, according to a new BBC documentary.
The discovery was made by a team of vets in southern Africa featured on the BBC’s new documentary Dogs in the Wild, which airs its first episode tonight.
Vets from the Endangered Wildlife Trust team, which helps rescue and rehabilitate injured wild dogs, found that the animals appear to suffer grief when separated from their packs of up to 30 individuals.
In some cases the grief was so extreme the rescued animals were found to be dying despite their physical wounds healing.
Signs of stress were found in the dogs’ internal organs during post mortem examinations, including one dog found with stress ruptures around the heart, which the team concluded had died from the cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome.
