Empathy for the pain and suffering of others is widespread among social animals, and can provide a motivation for prosocial behaviors, including consolation. Here, I describe a definition-free approach to studying empathy using consoling behavior in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster). I use a series of behavioral assays to demonstrate empathy-related characteristics and capacities in prairie vole, including pro-social contact, social buffering, emotional contagion, state matching, and familiarity bias. I then explore the neurobiology of empathy using this model, implicating the anterior cingulate cortex and the neurohormone oxytocin. Finally, I demonstrate how empathy-related behaviors in rodents can be used to assess autism phenotypes by discussing my experiments looking at behavioral and neurological effects of developmental toxin exposure in mice. Animal models of empathy hold significant promise as outcome measures relevant to autism research.