Do dogs feel guilt? Do dogs sense human emotion?
"Tummy rub time!", our dog "Palette" throw her body against me and 1,2,3 strokes and voilà! she flips over with tongue hanging out,panting with narrow eyes. She loves to be pet and, as soon as she thinks you are available for tummy rub services, she will be right there and flips over for tummy rub.
Occasionally, she stands up suddenly, walk away from me, stare at the wall for a few seconds and come back to me. It is like mini doggy runaway show. When that happens, I know what made her excuse herself for a few seconds. Whiff the air and ewww! she drags the smell from the other end, throw her body against me, with head on my laps, ears fold back, and stare with her very expressive eyebrows as if she knows she did something with guilt. Since the diet change, she fart much much less, and much less stinky but still, she does fart. Family members start moving hands right and left to make offensive smell away from us above her. Her eyebrows go up and down.
So, do you think that dogs can feel guilt?
It can be questioned in other situation such as.. you go out and come home and find chewed up slippers, or maybe potty accident areas and you find your dogs head low, ears fold back as if you can translate the look into guilt and you could imagine they might be feeling guilt for what they have done.
But is it really? Answer is, No. Even if you find the chewed up slippers or potty accident area long after they did, and you are not acting happy about what you see, they have no idea why you are not happy about.
Then,what makes dogs to show guilty look/posture?
Dogs respond to your emotion, your tone of voice, your gesture.. and guilty look on dogs face is probably one of those responses in the situation. I always feel my emotions are transparent to Palette and when I am scared, nervous, feeling sick etc.. Palette pick it up very fast and she starts acting differently.
I do not like spider. I freeze up and what happen? Palette start barking non stop. That is when my husband knows spider is somewhere near. I really don't need to tell him about spider with word.
As for tone of voice with dog's response,it is more apparent when you just say something with no emotion and when you say something in more cheerful happy voice for example, dogs would respond more with cheerful voice. Sometimes, change of tone of voice could change the respond from your dogs.
As for gesture, lets say you keep your dog treats in freezer, and dog knows it. Then, you walk to the freezer to take food out for your family dinner and what happens? The dogs might be right behind you once they sense you walk toward freezer with hope you might have walked to freezer to take out their treats from freezer.
Only time you can let your dogs know where they can do potty, what they can chew not the potty area they chose or the ones they chose to chew up is when you "catch in the act". That is the only timing they can understand and relate two events together.
You cannot yell at your dogs when you find chewed up furniture or shoes,slippers or potty accident areas on floor because yelling just stress dogs out.
If you caught your dog potty accident, simply take your dog out for potty and when they did potty outside, praise them big. Personally, for potty problem, I like potty bell I ended up teaching my dog to ring when she needed to go. It is very easy to teach them and wherever you go, you can bring the familiar bell with you and you just need to tell your dogs where the bell is, and no communication miss and I am happy with it.
To read previous entry titled "Gottago gottago ring!ring!ring!:House training dogs", please click here.
If it were chewing problems, until they know what is ok to chew, you can crate them during the time you are out or if hours they have to wait for you to come home is long, you can take them to Doggy day care. When you catch them chewing inappropriate items say nothing, simply replace the items with appropriate item and praise them. However, I think that it is important to make sure your dog is getting enough exercise as well.
So, do you think your dogs can sense your emotion?
I think since there were so many occasions in the past I can feel my emotion is transparent to Palette,I think dogs sense human emotions. What is your thoughts on this?
I came across interesting article at petplace.com on whether dogs can sense human emotion.
To read the article,please click here.
Occasionally, she stands up suddenly, walk away from me, stare at the wall for a few seconds and come back to me. It is like mini doggy runaway show. When that happens, I know what made her excuse herself for a few seconds. Whiff the air and ewww! she drags the smell from the other end, throw her body against me, with head on my laps, ears fold back, and stare with her very expressive eyebrows as if she knows she did something with guilt. Since the diet change, she fart much much less, and much less stinky but still, she does fart. Family members start moving hands right and left to make offensive smell away from us above her. Her eyebrows go up and down.
So, do you think that dogs can feel guilt?
It can be questioned in other situation such as.. you go out and come home and find chewed up slippers, or maybe potty accident areas and you find your dogs head low, ears fold back as if you can translate the look into guilt and you could imagine they might be feeling guilt for what they have done.
But is it really? Answer is, No. Even if you find the chewed up slippers or potty accident area long after they did, and you are not acting happy about what you see, they have no idea why you are not happy about.
Then,what makes dogs to show guilty look/posture?
Dogs respond to your emotion, your tone of voice, your gesture.. and guilty look on dogs face is probably one of those responses in the situation. I always feel my emotions are transparent to Palette and when I am scared, nervous, feeling sick etc.. Palette pick it up very fast and she starts acting differently.
I do not like spider. I freeze up and what happen? Palette start barking non stop. That is when my husband knows spider is somewhere near. I really don't need to tell him about spider with word.
As for tone of voice with dog's response,it is more apparent when you just say something with no emotion and when you say something in more cheerful happy voice for example, dogs would respond more with cheerful voice. Sometimes, change of tone of voice could change the respond from your dogs.
As for gesture, lets say you keep your dog treats in freezer, and dog knows it. Then, you walk to the freezer to take food out for your family dinner and what happens? The dogs might be right behind you once they sense you walk toward freezer with hope you might have walked to freezer to take out their treats from freezer.
Only time you can let your dogs know where they can do potty, what they can chew not the potty area they chose or the ones they chose to chew up is when you "catch in the act". That is the only timing they can understand and relate two events together.
You cannot yell at your dogs when you find chewed up furniture or shoes,slippers or potty accident areas on floor because yelling just stress dogs out.
If you caught your dog potty accident, simply take your dog out for potty and when they did potty outside, praise them big. Personally, for potty problem, I like potty bell I ended up teaching my dog to ring when she needed to go. It is very easy to teach them and wherever you go, you can bring the familiar bell with you and you just need to tell your dogs where the bell is, and no communication miss and I am happy with it.
To read previous entry titled "Gottago gottago ring!ring!ring!:House training dogs", please click here.
If it were chewing problems, until they know what is ok to chew, you can crate them during the time you are out or if hours they have to wait for you to come home is long, you can take them to Doggy day care. When you catch them chewing inappropriate items say nothing, simply replace the items with appropriate item and praise them. However, I think that it is important to make sure your dog is getting enough exercise as well.
So, do you think your dogs can sense your emotion?
I think since there were so many occasions in the past I can feel my emotion is transparent to Palette,I think dogs sense human emotions. What is your thoughts on this?
I came across interesting article at petplace.com on whether dogs can sense human emotion.
To read the article,please click here.
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