Sometimes dog owners fall into the trap of interpreting their pets’ actions in human terms.
If you’ve lived with a dog for a long enough time, the chances are that at some point you will have returned home to find them skulking around the living room, surrounded by the wrecked remains of a china vase, feather pillow or other valuable item.
The scene is so common that it has spawned ‘dog shaming’, an Internet subculture where dog owners share pics of their pups expressing a look of shame along with a sign attached to them detailing their latest misdemeanour.
“The ‘guilty look’ is when we think a dog looks guilty of some infraction,” says Alexandra Horowitz, a professor of canine cognition based at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.
“Maybe their ears or back or their head is down. Maybe they’re looking away a little, or their tail is wagging low between their legs.”
But what exactly is going through our dogs’ minds when they display this behaviour? Probably not what you’re expecting…
Why do dogs really give us that ‘guilty look’?
To investigate the reasons why our pet pooches act like this, Horowitz and her team set up an experiment. They had a dog and their owner enter a room and then placed a tasty treat in front of them. The owners were then asked to leave the room after ordering their dogs not to eat the treat.
While the owners were away, some of the dogs were given the forbidden treat while some weren’t. The owners were then asked back into the room and told whether the dog had eaten the treat or left it alone as asked. However, some owners were told that the dog had eaten the treat when they hadn’t.
“What I found is that they show the same amount of the ‘guilty look’ whether they ate the treat or not. What changed the rate of the look was if the owners thought they had eaten it and came to scold them, however mildly,” says Horowitz.
“The dogs put on this submissive, appeasement look, saying ‘whatever it is, I’m sorry’. But they do it if we just give them an angry face. Even when they haven’t done anything wrong. That’s a real sign that it’s not because they’re feeling guilty.
“This doesn’t mean they can’t feel guilt, just that we’re not great at reading that behaviour.”
This means the guilty look isn’t an expression of guilt or shame at all. It’s simply owners misinterpreting their pet’s behaviour by attributing human emotions to the actions of dogs.
So, next time you suspect your dog might’ve done something they shouldn’t have, maybe think twice before giving them the stink eye.
About our expert, Prof Alexandra Horowitz
Alexandra is a professor of canine cognition based at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.
Her work has been published in the academic journals Animal Cognition, Learning And Behaviour and the Official Journal Of The Society For Neuroscience.
She is also the author of the books Inside Of A Dog – What Dogs See, Smell And Know and The Year Of The Puppy.
Read more about dogs:
- The (incredibly adorable) reason your dog stares at you
- Top 10: Biggest dog breeds in the world
- Why your dog likes to eat grass (and poop)