If you haven’t watched Is Denver Really Guilty? or read “Guilt” Part 1, please take a peek. We’re covering the “guilty look” in a series format, like Harry Potter but with less magic and more dogs!
BadSpottedDog:
“Ok, so how do you explain dogs who do something wrong, and act guilty even when no one says or does anything? My guilty dog LeeLoo exhibits this behavior when we don't know she's done something wrong. This makes us have to go looking for the offense. She gives herself away. Out of all the ‘experts’ making comments on my video, it seems someone would address this.”
BadSpottedDog is not the only one wondering about this. The “guilty look” in this context was the focus of my Masters research at the Family Dog Project, and this question was running through many peoples’ minds.
If you cruise the internet, you’ll find that when dogs display unprompted “guilty” behavior, owners say, “She gave herself away” and “She knows she did something wrong, we weren’t even scolding her!”
Why do dogs show this behavior? Let’s consider two hypotheses:
Hypothesis One: Dogs show “guilty” behaviors before owners discover the misdeed because dogs know they have done something wrong. This hypothesis suggests, you come home, a dog knows she has done something wrong so she shows you apologetic behavior preemptively. Her behavior is perceived as a white flag, “I know I have lost. You will soon find 3 pairs of your underwear on the couch. They are blue and I like the way they smell! Don’t shoot!”
Hypothesis Two: Dogs show “guilty” behaviors before owners are aware of a mess out of fear/anticipation of some combination of punishment/scolding/disapproving owner.
How can we differentiate between a dog’s fear of punishment and its knowledge of a misdeed? Let’s take a look:
In one experiment*, Nicki, a 1-year old Siberian Husky, had the habit of shredding paper when left alone. This upset her owner, who thought spite was behind her actions. Upon finding his reading material torn to bits, he would punish and lecture her.
In this experiment, the owner was instructed to shred the paper himself when Nicki was out of the house. After letting Nicki into the house, the owner stayed out of the house for ~15 minutes. Although Nicki did not touch the shredded paper in her owner’s absence, when the owner returned, Nicki displayed behaviors associated with “guilt”. According to the owner, “It was as though the dog herself had shredded the paper.”
The results look like this:
Mess + Dog who did not make the mess = Dog displaying “guilty” behavior.
Imagine if Nicki had not shown “guilty” behavior in this experimental condition. If this were the case, we would be more likely to consider Hypothesis One because Nicki knows she didn’t shred the paper, so why should she look guilty? If Hypothesis One were to explain Nicki’s behavior, she should only look guilty when she herself had performed the misdeed.
But Nicki did show “guilty” behavior! Even thought she didn't shred, say, the Style section of the New York Times (I too don’t always agree with fashion trends). This suggests that labeling Nicki’s behavior as guilty, at least according to the idea that she is knowledgeable of her own misdeed, is an incorrect interpretation of her behavior.
How does that relate to you and your dog? When you scold or become disappointed in your dog upon finding a mess they made, your dog is not necessarily learning not to make a mess. She could just be learning to put on these behaviors to minimize your behavior. She could even learn to offer these behaviors preemptively before you have found the mess.
You know how you go to the dog cookie jar (or your version of this) and a dog will come over to you and sit even before you ask her to? This is a similar idea of dogs offering behaviors preemptively. But you wouldn’t say your dog is trying to please you, she just knows that certain behaviors on her part accompany certain actions on your part.
Human goes to dog cookie jar + Dog sits (either prompted or on her own) = Dog gets dog cookie. Dogs presenting the “guilty look” before you have found their misdeed could be similar!
Let’s also consider that not all dogs show the “guilty look” in the anecdote under consideration.
For every dog who explores toilet paper and Q-tips in the bathroom trash and then greets an owner showing “guilty” behavior, there is another dog who gives the toilet paper and Q-tips the same thorough examination and does not greet the owner showing any behavioral signs of “guilt”. This means, in the context raised by BadSpottedDog, dogs vary in their presentation of the “guilty look”.
Researchers are still investigating the reasons behind this individual variation in dog presentation of “guilty” behavior; is it related to dog personality, dog obedience training or even dog exposure to different methods of scolding or punishment?
A final food for thought: Dogs and their wolf-like ancestors are social mammals. Us humans are also social mammals. This is key because social animals are dependent on one another and use behaviors and vocalizations to communicate with members of their family, whether this family be human or non-human. Many dogs are members of human social families and therefore direct their dogcentric behaviors in our direction.
The question today is: Are we reading dogs’ behaviors on their terms or on our terms?
* Vollmer, P., 1977. Do mischievous dogs reveal their "guilt"? Vet. Med. Sm. Anim. Clin. 72, 1002-1005.
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