It’s a statement I’ve heard to many times before. An owner
will come home to find a chewed up shoe or a big puddle on the floor and utter
something similar to this: “Then I took him right over to the puddle and said
‘bad dog, what did you do’. He knew he did wrong because he looked so
guilty.”
And here is the honest, scientific truth: He or she has
absolutely no idea what he/she did was wrong. The poor pup is just reacting to
the owner’s tone and possibly anger. It is a faulty way of disciplining because
the dog is not learning a thing.
An Associated Press article explains:
Behaviorists insist dogs
lack shame. The guilty look — head cowered, ears back, eyes droopy — is a
reaction to the tantrum you are throwing not over the damage they did hours
earlier.
Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a professor at Texas A&M University’s
College of Veterinary Medicine and executive director of the American College
of Veterinary Behaviorists, had this straightforward advice: “Just get
over it and remind yourself not to put temptation in the way next time.”
Temptation can mean many things for different dogs. As a
puppy, my lab Django would
steal stuffed animals from my son’s bed and in thirty seconds, a SuperMario
plush could be a mess of white fluff strewn across the living room (like
this). After she did this a few times, I learned to keep my son’s door
closed. It took about a full year for Django to fully stop munching on stuffed
video game characters (and even now and then if a plushy is near her, she is
tempted). Had I allowed her have the opportunity to get at the toys, she would
have gladly eaten all of them.
In the case of potty accidents, owners need to find a way to
relieve their dogs even few hours whether that means a dog walker or coming
home themselves. It’s cruel to force a dog to hold it for hours on end; most
dogs will only use the floor as an absolute last resort.
Yes, those dog shaming memes are funny, mostly because of
the guilty looking faces, but in reality, dogs do not know why you are mad, so
do your best to prevent the incident before it happens.
Image: Imgur