The tendency to think that our dog shows guilt due to some mischief he did, such as breaking a shoe, ripping a piece of furniture, relieving himself outside the place assigned for it among other things, it is common and in fact many of us are convinced that indeed the animal expresses a kind of remorse and guilt after doing something that "in his opinion" was wrong.
But is the dog capable of feeling guilt?
Nothing is further from being true, attributing a feeling of guilt to our pet would be equivalent to assuming that has the rationing capacity of a human being and that consequently, he can discern between what's right or what's wrong And this way of looking at the situation can lead to serious problems in the master-pet relationship where the master may feel frustration at seeing that the dog does not act according to his supposed reasoning and in the pet a lot of confusion.
What does that look to which we attribute guilt mean?
According to studies, that look accompanied by certain body language of the dog, where he crouches in submission, puts his ears back, lowers his gaze or shows the white part of the eye, hides his tail, where he hides all this behavior, has its reason for being and is not exactly guilt.
All this performance of the animal, It is a response to some scolding or reprimand from the master, to the reaction we have in front of him in a situation where there was damage or inappropriate behavior. Studies also indicate that the dog when subjected to obedience tests, where some actually obeyed the order to eat or not some food that was left within their reach and others did not obey, in both cases the animal showed no difference in behavior both acted in a normal way, which indicates that even when some disobeyed the order, it did not mean for them any guilt in this regard.
The dog is an animal, which learn to observe human behavior, they learn to interpret our tone of voice, our gestures and attitudes and therefore they react immediately to these signals, which could be interpreted as a feeling of guilt, when it's actually an answer to our behavior at that time and rather show insecurity and lack of protection in the face of a threat.
En consequence to the dog's attitude Given our attitude, this is only a natural reaction to the animal's fear of being reprimanded and punished, although it is important to note that the ideal is that the reprimand originates at the moment the pet incurs the "mischief"Or bad behavior since otherwise he will not know the reason why we are punishing him even when we insist on taking him to the scene and point out what it is about, he will not understand and will only perceive that we are upset and will express his response of fear. It's an animal, does not have the ability to relate scolding him, with the fact.
All that said, in a household with multiple dogs, it would be very difficult to determine which of them has been the culprit of the mischief committed, since surely everyone when pointed out will have a similar attitude to the scolding of the master, there are no greater actions than cleaning up the damage.
The human tendency to wanting to humanize our pets Attributing to them feelings and responses that are inherent in our nature, leads us to misinterpret behaviors Of these, and without realizing it, we are plunging them into a sea of confusion about their attitude that generates many inconveniences in daily coexistence.
Being clear about what it means educate a pet Providing her with the minimum necessary training helps her to manifest the expected behavior, to obey, to know that she is not the leader, that she knows what her space is and that she is loved and accepted in the family circle.