The Saturday Pet Blogger Hop/Guilty As Charged
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Happy Saturday pet lovers. Now that the weekend is here things are looking up – unless you’re this dog!
You probably don’t even have to hit the play button to know what’s happening here, because that look just says it all. Busted.
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Welcome to another installment of the Saturday Pet Blogger Hop! You’ve found the right place to connect with other pet lovers. Whether you are a seasoned blogger, one who loves reading pet blogs, or if you’re just thinking about starting your own blog – there is definitely something here for you. Acquaint yourself and enjoy – this is your resource, so use it as you see fit! Of course, you have to follow the rules, so let’s get to that. Get those links in and have fun.
- Link up your pet blog name and URL using the Linky Tool below. You only need to add your link once to be seen on all the Saturday Pet Blogger Blog Hop Linky Tools for that week. Note that if your blog is not pet related your link will be removed.
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Our local radio station featured this video earlier this week. I thought it was funny, but was also conflicted about the dog’s behavior (now I sound like one of those people who always has to take the fun out of a funny video, don’t I? I hate that. I’m sorry.)
I’ve seen this dog’s grin before – with one of my clients. It’s called a submission grin and it is often displayed as an appeasing signal when a dog is afraid or nervous. Thus the conflicted feeling. The video is funny, but it also made me wonder why the dog was displaying the grin in the first place.
Is it not possible that they actually feel guilty at times?
http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2010/11/the-bad-dog-blues-christmas-tree-disaste
http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2011/03/who-did-this-mess
Yup. Totally possible. That’s why I was conflicted. It could be that he was just feeling guilty. In which case, the video is hilarious. It was the grin that confused me.
Nope. Not possible. I didn’t feel conflicted when I watched this video- I felt downrigt uncomfortable, especially since the video is featured on a blog that is supposed to promote responsible dog ownership. Thinking a dog can feel “guilt” is a classic case of anthropomorphizing a dog’s emotions. Dogs are reacting, in the *present moment*, to their owner’s emotional state, body language and tone of voice. Dogs do not experience remorse for their past actions the way people do. Thinking a dog can feel guilt leads to huge training mistakes. This video is kinda like Exhibit A for how to NOT train your dog (including leaving things like treat bags within reach of a dog – or in a low cupboard that they can easily open – this is a huge safety hazard). See my comments below for all the red flags in this video.
Poor Denver! I hope the treats were at least tasty. He didn’t look like they were sitting very well in his tummy. Poor guy!
Well why did you leave the treats where he could get them?
ENTRAPMENT!
Opie the lawyer dog
I agree Opie!
In our case, it’s Toby’s separation anxiety. We make sure everything is totally out of reach and put up before we leave the house! But there’s no punishment if he does get into something. Our fault and WE should know better.
EXACTLY.
I’m so relieved there are responsible dog owners commenting on this blog, too! This video was so sad. The owner should’ve taken responsibility, thrown away the bag, and that was it. He also should’ve felt relieved that HIS mistake of leaving out the bag didn’t put his dog in the hospital – if he had swallowed bits of plastic or even the whole bag. Poor pup.
It’s very funny. Those are not dogs that are afraid, except maybe of the camera… I laughed out loud!
Hmm if they have crates why weren’t the dogs put away while the guy wasn’t home? Crates are supposed to be a place dogs can feel safe and NOT get into trouble. The man should have sent himself to the penalty box.
AGREED.
Well, I thought it was hilarious. My stinkers always look guilty when they have done something they know is wrong. Punishment is just a scolding in front of my other fur babies which I think is humiliating for the guilty party. But then, I think they’d turn each other in for the infraction if they could get away with it. Somehow, based on their behavior, I always seem to know who did it. Only one dog in my pack seems to think she is above punishment or guilt and that is the queen bee. In fact, she thinks obedience is only for the other dogs in our house.
Oh we have a match here. A crazy, yellow dog…
Uhhhh…another person who thinks that their dogs feel guilty after they’ve misbehaved? And that “scolding” after the fact can effectively “humiliate” the dog? Where have people learned these dog training techniques, or are we just placing our human emotions and human relationships onto our dogs? Please, read up on how to use positive and effective training techniques. What you think is guilt/humiliation is just your dog reacting to your emotional state at that time.
Just thought you might like to know that all my dogs have earned advanced levels of obedience training and love what they do. Some of what we say here on this blog is tongue and cheek. We know our dogs problem solve in canine ways. Just because we anthropomorphize their behavior a little doesn’t mean we are idiots or that we abuse our dogs.
A psychiatrist is a phicysian who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. I have a bachelor’s degree in the social services field. For several years, I have worked with children who have been diagnosed with mental disorders. It is upsetting to see children victimize at an early age and even more disturbing to see them as predators as early as 5 years of age, however knowing that I am doing my part to assist them in becoming functioning youths and adults is rewarding. The empathy, confidentiality and maturity of a medical assistant are definitely needed in this area. I enjoy establishing a rapport with these clients and helping them to find adequate coping skills to deal with their disorders, therefore I would like to work for a psychiatrist.I would not like to work for an emergency phicysian for several reasons. I will explain a few. Patients who come to the emergency center typically have serious injuries or trauma. I would not like to have my mind constantly focused on who is coming thru the door and how sever the prognosis is. Knowing myself, I know that would be my focus and I would not be very productive. Also, in the emergency room the staff has to be prepared for anything, I would prefer an area that focuses on a particular specialty. Most importantly, I do not wish to see excessive amounts of blood loss on a regular basis. Actually, not even a minimal amount of blood loss on a regular basis. Giving my opinion and thoughts about this specialty, I would not be an effective employee.
Ouch! that’s nasty!! You have to do it properly doggie!
Having known some dogs who do that grin (and who certainly have not been abused in any way) it didn’t occur to me to question it. I laughed so hard watching the video my husband came to see what was going on. Hilarious!
Just because a dog isn’t abused doesn’t mean it can’t feel enormous discomfort and fear when its owner is in its face, having a stern tone of voice, and in a heightened emotional state. It feel this discomfort and fear because it has NO idea why the owner is so mad. Dogs do not feel remorse for past actions. This dog, if it indeed did eat the treats, has no idea why its owner is unhappy. Then, it gets sent to its crate as punishment when a crate should only be used as a positive “den-like” spot. No, this video was not funny to me! Even if the dog isn’t anticipating being smacked, it is clearly uncomfortable and upset. Why would an owner want to revel in his dog’s fear? Sad.
Hi Y’all,
Just hopped by to catch up! Glad to see someone else get busted!
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
SOOOO funny! I laughed out loud! I think he enjoyed every morsel and really does not care he was sent to the punishment box!
Denver,
That was so funny! You sure couldn’t be a poker player, right from the start that wagging tail gave you away, then you were smiling about it! I thought I was bad?! I got Busted yesterday too, Mum instantly assumed I took her Ugg Boots into the garden in the pouring rain and didn’t imagine for a minute it was Cosmo! Doh!
Hope you’re out of the dog house now,
Snoopy
Awww, that ain’t nuthin’ compared to stealing the cheese worth $21/ lb!
Awww, Denver. Nice job wagging your tail, though. Tell your dad he’s lucky you eat cat treats in bags, as opposed to cat treats in (litter) boxes. As, ahem, one of my family members does. Yeeeeeuuccck!
Wow. Eating litter and cat poop is not a joke. It could land your dog in the hospital with an obstructed organ. I’d suggest moving your cat’s litterbox somewhere your dog can’t get it, for their safety especially but also since the dog can take up some harmful bacteria from the cat’s poop – and will deposit that bacteria on anything else they lick or mouth. Cat little should NOT be within a dog’s reach, ever. That is safety 101 for dogs living in your home!
Awww look at that smile! We wanted to hug Denver and tell him, “WE FORGIVE YOU!”
Watched that yesterday and it is funny. Talk about a guilty look.
I just saw this video yesterday and really had to laugh! What a riot!
It’s good to see you back, too!
Denver did not do it – we can tell! Bad Dad!
Wolves, heyenas, jackels, etc. use the “grin” as a sign of subjucation / submission. Yes, I too wondered why the owner didn’t put the dogs in crates before leaving the house. Prevention is worth a pound of cure! Also, crates are to be a dogs sanctuary not a place of punishment. Otherwise, I found the video amusing.
I so love this!!
I love that face!
Our pup has perfected the “guilt trip” LOL!
My Bo can give those looks!! Some dogs really know how to play their two-leggers!
I’ve never seen this look before. I have a dachshund, and they don’t know the concept of guilt. They do as they do, and THAT is the way things should be. Period.
my heart broke for this poor dog. I felt like kissing him.
I love this!
AWW!!!
Definitely … what a face!
what I got from his face was being nervous/uncomfortable. and I thought that face could easily turn into a growl and/or a bite. all the licking means the dog is apprehensive. (just my opinion)
my dog gets that ”guilty look” and i go thru the house to see if he really did something baaaad.. most of the time he didnt lol
I believe his name is Deborah…
shared
Oh for heaven’s sake, people, lighten up!
Are you serious?? HOW FREAKIN’ CUTE IS THIS???????? I CAN HARDLY STAND IT!!!!
awwww, sooo sorry, what a cute baby.
But, you gotta watch to see the face the doggie makes!
LOOOL, this is sooo cute ^_^
omg how freakiing adorable is that???
My Victorian Bulldog does this if she knows she’s done something, like torn the binding off the mat in her pen .. we just say “Keeva did you do this?” and she looks right at the offending mat or the toy she’s just taken the squeaker out of .. you know she’s done it …
LMAO I had a Dane girl that did the same thing LOL../././
This is the cutest video, talk about guilt, he is so precious, and the little girl, the looks on her face, as well.
This was a very cute and funny video. I am familiar with the grinning dog syndrome as my Katie girl does it. It’s a sign of submission. Denver knows from the tone that his master is dissing him and he is showing submission “please don;t be mad, I’ll be a good pack member”. This is (one reason) why we love dogs so much.
My Duffy does exactly that when she’s guilty of something, I didn’t think the dog was unhappy he was just guilty and he looked so cute.
Dogs can’t feel guilty. A dogs’ submissive reaction to their owner being annoyed or angry is often misinterpreted as guilt. Anyone who thinks a dog can feel the human emotion of guilt is the type of person who also thinks that rubbing a dog’s nose in a potty accident is a legitimate training technique. Absolutely incorrect and actually does more harm than good – just like using a crate as a “penalty box” or yelling at a dog after the fact. They don’t know why you’re mad, they don’t know why you’re yelling, and all it will do is erode the dog’s trust in you and increase their feeling of submissiveness and uncertainty at what you will yell at them about next. It saddens me to see videos like this featured, when it is full of so many negative and potentially harmful approaches to living with and training your dog.
ok, Jesse, I can see the submission angle but the lip licking signals unease. I was just trying to point out that the dog’s actions could mean something else. Wasn’t trying to cause any problems.
That dog wasn’t just uneasy – it was terrified. As a dog trainer, this video made me very uncomfortable. A dog cannot feel “guilty”. This is a common misperception of a dog’s reaction to its owners *current* emotional state. The dog was fearful of its owner. Quite honestly, it looked like he was bracing to be smacked. Luckily the guy was smart enough to not video-tape smacking his dog. Instead, he just used the crate as punishment– which is a huge no-no. Crates should be positive, restful places that the dog associates as their own “den”. Too bad this guy knows nothing about training techniques – or keeping kitty treats out of his dog’s reach. What if his dog had eaten the bag and ended up in the hospital? Would he also send him to his crate when they get back home? This guy would fail every adoption test I run for local rescues. I wouldn’t trust him with my dogs, and quite frankly think that he needs to spend a good bit of time reading up on proper training techniques and how to read dogs’ reactions to his heightened emotional states.
I had a beagle that was like this: sweetest face until you kept pushing for the truth.
LOL!! I loved the “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me” routine, but that snarly face was priceless!!!!!
Oh man, that’s priceless. poor pooch couldnt help himself.
so funny can’t stop laughing and have to replay video over and over.
Poor Denver. He didn’t mean to eat those cat treats but you left them were he could get them. Now go sit in the penalty box for not putting away the cat treats.
Haha. Agreed! The owner should’ve gone and shut himself in his room-penalty-box …Until he read at least 2 books about how to keep your house safe for your dogs, and how to be a good pack leader with correct training techniques!!
From http://www.vetinfo.com:
Dogs have some real memory but it’s only extremely short in its span. Most research indicates that a dog’s short-term memory is about 10 to 20 seconds long. This means that if a dog poops in the house, for instance, and you scold him about it 5 minutes later, he won’t associate the scolding to pooping in the house. He’ll associate the scolding with you and pooping in general.
Denver recognized his owner’s tone of voice and knew what was coming. It wasn’t the empty treat bag that elicited the guilty look. Bad owner for leaving the treats accessible.
I Loved it and have a Dane that does the same thing ;o) I LMAO !!! Thanks for sharing the guilty party wih us and for the rest of you REALLY ???? Lighten up there’s to many up tight people just enjoy it for what it is just fun nothing else.
the responsibility for eating the cat treats is the person who left them down so the dogs could get them. I cannot believe reprimanding the two dogs to such a degree. It may look cute when dogs show their teeth like they are smiling, and some do it when they are happy. However often the dog is showing submissiveness to keep from being hurt. I feel like this dog was doing that. Its’ sad to watch that dog treated that way for the camera then humiliated to go to his/her cage when all s/he was doing was eating some treats that were left down. It was a very sad video.
Too funny, though I have two things to say:
1) my boy will look guilty even when I know darn well it was my little alpha s*#t who was the culprit. He hates any reprimanding even if it’s not aimed at him.
2) I will never believe that dogs don’t remember when they’ve done something wrong. I’ve had several dogs in the past that have had a guilty look on their face from the moment I stepped through the front door BEFORE I’ve even realized that there’s a mess.
That doesn’t prove your dogs are capable of feeling guilt (they are not). What that proves is that, in their eyes, you are unpredictable enough for them to feel afraid at random moments. They do not know how to interpret your reactions and feel off-balance/uncertain enough to expect you to feel mad at any moment. Because when you get upset about something they’ve done in the past, they don’t make the connection, so as far as they know you just get mad at totally random times. So, they will start to act submissive at what seems like random times. It’s amazing how dogs mirror their interpretation of our behavioral patterns.
Wow, you must think dogs are pretty stupid because you don’t give them any credit for reading any situations at all. I guess those millions of years evolving along side us has basically been a waste of evolutionary time.
Denver is WAY too overweight, his back is sagged, very bad for spine. Good he felt guilty!
I had a fish who eat 6 new fishes in 1 night. Guess what – she WAS gulity, she did not come out to greet me as she does every single day. She was hiding behind plants and peeping at me. I cross my heart.
Awwww… he couldn’t bear to look! Poor guilty pup.
I can assure you that my dogs are not abused. However, I know the guilty look when I see it. Each of my 4 dogs has their own look. Little stinkers.
Lighten up people. ENJOY having a dog and enjoy his/her personality. And yes, we know in the end it is our fault for leaving things out. In the end, it’s all in good fun.
Mamma Heartbeat
What you think is a guilty look isn’t guilt. It’s the dog reacting, in the present moment, to you being upset. Dogs don’t feel the *human* emotion of guilt. I’d encourage you, one day, when your dogs haven’t done anything wrong, to imagine in your mind that they have eaten something off the counter that you left out. Really think about it happening. Then, react as you would if it had really happened. Do your dogs have the exact same “guilty” look that you know so well? I am 100% sure that they would. Because they would react to your feeling of upset, staring at them, asking who did it, using a stern tone, etc. – or whatever your usual reaction might be.
Why is watching an animal humiliated, hanging its head tail tucked under shamed for an exorbitant time especially in dog time, all in good fun? Why shouldn’t the reaction to this video be compassion and empathy for the dog? Why lighten up just because we do not side with the domineering controlling owner? There are going to be a variety of reactions and comments to this video and many do not bode well for the owner of this dog. There was a dog harmed, if only temporarily, in the making of this video.
Agreed. This video made me, as a dog trainer, uncomfortable and sad. All the people laughing and saying “haha, my dog does that too! I know the guilty look!” made me even more uncomfortable. Domineering is a good word to describe the owner. Uninformed and a poor dog trainer would be other phrases. Harmed is a good word to describe the dog’s emotional state. His owner is mad, he doesn’t know why, and he knows he’s gonna be punished. As another commenter said, it’s the owner’s fault for leaving out the treats. He should’ve put himself in the crate!
It is known that dogs respond best to positive feedback, not shaming. I will not say I have never resorted to shaming especially when frustrated with housebreaking efforts. However it would never occur to me to laugh at my dog when my dog is hanging its head in so much shame, much less making a video about it. If you think this video is so hilarious ask yourself how good you feel when people laugh at you when you are crying inside? Your dog is not that much different that you. How healthy can that be for the individual to be so lacking in compassion or the culture over all. Not very imo.
Agreed. This video was evidence of very poor, irresponsible dog ownership. See my comment below for why. Also – “shaming” a dog is a complete myth. You can’t shame a dog. A dog is reacting *in the moment* to its owners’ emotional state. That dog did not make a connection between the treats and the owner’s behavior. It knew its owner was p-o’d, and it was terrified. So sad to see this – and to see so many people thinking its funny. I think that that’s an indication of how little people understand about proper training techniques (and positive crate training) for dogs.
I had to laugh at this, if only becauseI have a boxer who feels guilty whenever anyone breaks the rules – I’m usually pretty sure it’s the old lab who waits till I leave the room for 30 seconds and sneaks into the kitchen to eat the cat food, but that little boxer feels guilty. It’s too funny to get mad about, but I do hold the bowl up now and again and ask if anyone knows what happened. This isn’t abuse guys.
Please move your cat food to a place where a dog can’t reach it. A cat can leap to a higher spot, out of reach of your dogs. Simple solution – and your dogs will be avoiding the “guilt” (which is not guilt, but rather a reaction to your state of exasperation or even annoyance) and the extra kitty calories, plus cat food is not formulated for dogs and not healthy for them. This is another automatic red flag during adoption home visits – is the cat food within reach of the dogs? By the way, is your cat’s litter also within your dog’s reach, which could be fatal if they get it while you’re not monitoring it?
This dog is clearly very – VERY – afraid of his owner. That wasn’t guilt. That was pure fear and submission. First, a dog can’t be reprimanded and know what they’re being reprimanded for unless they’re caught in the act. Five minutes after? Too late. Two hours after? Too late. The dog is not looking “guilty” because of the treats that he/she possibly ate. He is reacting to the owner’s tone and probably the owner’s habit of punishing him using the crate (or, I have to wonder..other methods?) And using the crate as punishment? This guy would fail every adoption test I run for local rescues. The crate should NEVER be associated with punishment or used as a “penalty box”. It can be used as a place to allow a dog to calm down if its overly excited, but only for several minutes in that type of situation. The crate should be a dog’s safe haven, rest spot, its den. Not to mention this whole situation came into being because the OWNER left the kitty treats where the dog could get to them. Why would a blog devoted to pets and responsible dog ownership post this video? Too bad. It containes many serious RED flags for any knowledgable, responsible dog owner. This guy needs to read about dog behavior and proper training techniques – especially positive crate training, keeping food, household items and unsafe treat bags out of his dogs’ reach, etc. He should have thrown out the empty treat bag and resolved that HE wouldn’t be so stupid by leaving them out next time. End of story.
I LOVE this video!! I have replayed it time and time again. The dog certainly does not look mistreated at all (after reading some of the comments)…..I think this is priceless. Thanks for showing it.