I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I’m not: I cried more when our family boxer Cassius died than I did when my parents passed away. The emotional hold that our pets have on us is remarkable. And because we tend to humanize our pets, we believe we know what they’re thinking. But what if science could actually tell us what our pets are feeling?

That’s exactly what researchers are working on, says Mirjam Guesgen, a postdoctoral fellow in animal welfare at the University of Alberta.

“One day, pet owners, farmhands or veterinarians could hold up a smart phone to a dog, sheep or cat and have an app tell them the specific emotion the animal is showing,” writes Mirjam.

When it comes to caring for humans, is there such a thing as “compassion fatigue” among health care workers? Prof. Shane Sinclair of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary says his research shows despite “growing patient workloads, paperwork, institutional demands and workplace stress,” providing compassion for patients in itself does not add to the fatigue of health care providers.

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