Do Dogs Really Feel Guilty?
 

This is excellent!

A Glimpse at "Guilty" | Susan Garrett's Dog Training Blog

Love it!
As for the question.... I really don't know.... sometimes I think they can and sometimes I don't..... I guess I don't really think they feel guilt in the true sense of the word but I do think that they can understand when they've done something wrong.

I do not think dogs have all the same emotions of a human...I think they react to our emotions and body language...I can tell Kate in sweet, sing songy voice I am going to beat her, starve her, toss her in the trash and she is so excited, jumps up and down..reacts to my happy or excited voice and actions...
When I am not happy, the Yorkies aren't either...alls well with Mom, the pack leader, then alls well with the world...

I agree with you, Pat....it's the tone of voice they are picking up on, not what is said to them. Although, that video could make one believe otherwise....loved that toothy grin from Denver.:D

Tibbe occasionally may feel guilty but he is usually quite defiant when I point out a shortcoming of his, standing there staring at me as if to say, "And just who do you think you are?" He's awfully full of himself!

Dogs don't have a conscience so they can't feel guilty, some humans don't have a conscience either. I think what you see as guilt, is fear of being punished or yelled at.

I don't think that dogs feel guilt, or believe they've done something wrong. I think it's like when humans see flashing lights in their rear view mirror. We don't feel guilty - we feel busted. ;)

I don't think dogs can feel "guilty" at all. They live in the moment and guilt is way to complex an emotion for an animal to feel. Oh course a dog is going to put it's head down and look sad when the owner is saying "what did you do" in an accusing tone of voice, they're reacting to us, not "thinking" about what they did. I kind of felt a little bad for the dogs in the video lol. That second one's eyes looked so sad:(

Not to get up on a soap box here or anything:) but that's alot of the problems people have with training their dogs, we have a big habit of personifying our "human" emotions on them. They just don't think like us or "contemplate" things and really, if you think about it, we wouldn't love them for most of the reasons we do if they did - they don't hold grudges, they don't judge etc. If they thought like we did, they probably wouldn't provide us with such unconditional love:D

When my son was born, the only dog we had was my beagle and she went through a phase were she would poop around his crib when we weren't home. My dh would get mad at her and say exactly that "what did you do?!?" and of course she'd run and hide. He'd say to me, see she knows what she did wrong, why does she keep doing it?? I told him that no, she dosen't feel quilty, she's reacting to your angry tone of voice. She's just stressed and confused by the baby, she'll get over it, leave her alone:D and she did.

So that's my rant LOL

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