We have probably observed that when we scold our dog, it acquires a peculiar expression. Many owners associate it with the guilt that the animal feels when knowing that it has not behaved as it should, but all this has its nuances. According to experts, dogs are not ashamed or culpability.
One of the studies that stands out the most in this regard is that of Alexandra horowitz, ethologist and associate professor at Barnard College in New York. Under the name "Inside a dog: what do dogs see, what they smell and what do they taste", the project collects the results of some curious experiments. 14 dogs whose owners left them alone in a room were videotaped after ordering them not to eat some treats that were available to them.
Some pets obeyed, while others did not. But regardless of their actions, they were scolded by their owners when they entered the room again. Their reactions were the same; they all adopted the same expression of "guilt." "I have found that the expression (of guilt) appears frequently when owners scold their dogs, regardless of whether the animal has disobeyed them or not," Horowitz explains. I don't mean to say that dogs can't feel guilty, just that the 'guilty face' is not one of the indicative of it, "he clarifies.
Experts such as the American ethologist Patricia B. McConnell, author of dog training books such as "At the other end of the leash", believe that it is human beings who we associate this emotion to certain expressions of the dogs. However, this does not mean that these animals are not capable of feeling guilt, only that we still do not know what their way of manifesting it is.
On the other hand, we must know that these animals can learn to make a "guilty face" to avoid conflict. That is to say, when observing that their owners react in a friendly way to this gesture, they repeat it as a mechanism to get rid of our punishment.