I was having an argument with a friend of mine about when you can correct a dog for doing something it's not supposed to do. I was telling him that unless you catch a dog in the act of doing something wrong, they won't know why you are correcting them. I said dogs learn by immediate results of their actions. My friend disagreed. He thinks dogs know when they've done something wrong and you can correct them after the fact. He used the example of one time he left a sandwich unguarded and as he was returning to the kitchen, he noticed his dog acting guilty and slinking away. Sure enough, the sandwich was gone. He dragged his dog to the empty plate and yelled at the dog. He believes his dog knew exactly why it was being yelled at because it had acted guilty before he had discovered the theft. I have heard this argument from others: the dog acted guilty because it knew it did wrong therefore it knew why it was being punished even if the act happened some time ago. From all that I've read about dog training, this argument is wrong, but how can one explain away the dog acting "guilty?"

Kitty S.

Funny, I agree with what your saying but I got caught in the same predicament with a friend about her female boxer. Apparently her dog is destructive during thunderstorms and long absences. One day when she came home the dog displayed the exact "guilty" behavior you noted after wrecking the house. My past dog, had the same issues. She would tear up the house and meet you when you came home with with her tail down, head down, eyes cast downward and move in a very deliberate slow motion knowing she was in trouble. Thank goodness I now have two well adjusted dogs that sound doesn't seem to bother. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

The dog was reading his body language and acting submissive. Lots of times people say "the dog was acting guilty, and sure enough there was trash on the floor from him getting in the trash." You take that same dog, have your friend came in and spread trash on the floor and when you come home the dog will act "guilty". The dog associates the trash on the floor with your anger and punishment, or reads your body language and sees that you are mad and acts submissive to appease you. I know this time it was food, but the idea is the same. Dogs can read the most subtle of body language cues, ones we don't even know we are giving.
It is common for people who don't have alot of factual, scientific knowledge about dog behavior and drives to put human feelings into their dogs. Annoying, but common. :rolleyes: bottom line dogs don't behave this way out of "guilt." You were right. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

OK, so a dog can act uncomfortable in a situation it sees as bad news--such as trash on the floor or a shoe chewed up--no matter who caused the situation in the first place. The dog just knows its owner will get pissy when he sees what has happened and this causes the dog to act guilty. But back to the dog stealing the sandwich, couldn't the owner argue that the dog who is uncomfortable over the situation of the missing sandwich, realize that IT was the cause of the situation in the first place and therefore knows why its owner is mad at the dog? How can one argue that dogs only learn cause and effect by immediate results, yet can learn that an incident--like a missing sandwich--will cause an eventual certain effect from the owner?

Kitty S.

Once i caught my dog chewing a letter in the act, so i punished him.

Now from time to time i'll return to the house and my dog will greet me with his head down and walking low and slow towards me instead of his usuall full on greeting assault. So i go into the room where his bed is and sure enough there is a letter that looks like its been put through a shreader.

I dont think my dog feels guilty for what hes done, i believe that dogs think with imprints of memory. Whats brobably happened my dog either chewed the letter as the temtation was to great - he was bored - or whatever drove him to chew. Now the imprint in his memory is of the punishement that i gave him last time when he chewed. Dogs have great memorys. So hes asscocited a punishment with what hes done, hence he thinks hes going to punished again.
Hence the pathetic walk towards me.

I used to demonstrate the "guilty" look to training classes by playing ball with my dog.

I'd start by getting her all geared and obviously excited. They I would put the ball on the floor, point at it and say "Look! Did you DO THAT!?! DID you DO THAT?!?" She would go into perfect "guilty dog" mode. Then I'd tell her it was OK, get the ball! and we'd be right back into geared dog play mode.

Made it pretty obvious to the class that YOU caused the "guilty look", not anything the dog did.

The guilty look only means the dog is thinking "OH, he looks pissed, man he looks pissed, don't look at me, please".

Dog has no clue, they just interpret his submission wrong.

My dog would meet me at the door with the "guilt" before I even realized she had done anything wrong. At that moment I wasn't angry with her, yet she would act very submissive. A few moments later I would see the destruction she caused. I could not crate this dog during storms either as she would literally mutilate herself in the crate and it would be full of slick saliva and blood. Most of the time she would escape or work at the mesh with her mouth and actually eat through the wire.

From what I've seen guilty dog = submissive / worried / anxious dog.

Yah they may be worried, but I believe it's worry about the mood of the person on the other side of the door.

My buddy's dog would listen to him coming from work, and if he slammed the car door hard, threw his stuff down outside the door or cussed on the way to the door, the dog almost always shredded something, pissed the floor, or got in the garbage out of anxiety before he got the deadbolt unlocked. She met him at the door submissively then.

Other times, she may have pissed the floor earlier, but if he came in happy, she was happy too. When he discovered older destruction (she trashed stuff when the neighbors cats teased through the window too), she didn't go into "guilt mode" until he found the mess and reacted to it. And it didn't take much reaction.

She didn't "worry" about it until he found it.

We set up several webcams and watched her. It was pretty interesting.

Granted it wasn't like a study or anything, but dogs react to very subtle cues from us. I can make (some of) my dogs stop in their tracks with a hard look, raised eyebrows, elevated head, etc. that most people never would notice. You have to work really hard to NOT fire off cues to them. That's why it's hard to make corrections impersonal <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I am the person in question who Miss Sivertson wrote about in her inquiry concerning canine behavior. What she failed to remember (conveniently?) in the little scenario of the dog stealing the sandwich, is that the dog acted guilty PRIOR to me having seen that it had been stolen, so all the hypotheses about body language doesn't work here. The dog had been scolded, immediately, on prior occasions for having stolen food off the table. To say that a dog can't understand a certain action will garner admonishment when done in the future, regardless of who is present or not present when the dog commits the act, is to say that the dog isn't capable of learning at all. I have watched dogs in the past on a number of occasions demonstrate this show of 'guilt', which by definition is simply an awareness of having done wrong. I remember watching a friend’s dog also steal food. The dog wasn't aware of me watching him and after scouting out the area for it's owner, skulked up to the food nervously, stole it, ate it, and then went back to the group of people that included his owner, with it's head down, tail between his legs, looking like he was expecting all hell to break loose. If the owner had taken the dog over to where the food had been, at that point, and admonished the dog, I think the dog would have known what he was being admonished for. What I find amusing are the so called animal experts, who are willing to attribute every kind of talent or ability to their pets or animals, except when it comes to their animals even remotely emulating the higher mammal; them. I'm not saying that ALL dogs are capable of understanding or exhibiting the concept of 'guilt' but, after witnessing enough empirical evidence I have concluded that one hypothesis may be that they can. Now, unless there are any "experts" out there who go by the name Dolittle, I challenge anyone to prove me wrong, or more importantly prove their own hypothesis right.

I dont think guilt is the correct word to use - this would imply that the dog shows remourse for what hes done. A dictionary defintion of guilt is

3. A feeling of regret or remorse for having committed some improper act; a recognition of one's own responsibility for doing something wrong.

Now i dont believe the dog is sorry for what hes done - i think he just aware of the concequences for what hes done and is getting himself ready for the inevitable - a good hyding!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />