What Hides The Guilty Face Of A Dog
When a dog does some evil or mischief, we know that it looks at us with a guilty face. However, can dogs tell right from wrong? If they know they have done wrong, why do they do it? Next, we answer these and other doubts that surround a dog’s guilty face.
The guilty face of a dog: signs of calm
The guilty face of a dog is easy to distinguish: the ears thrown back, the eyes of sorrow and even, at times, they wag their tail nervously. Other dogs, with those same sad eyes, turn as if hiding from the angry human; in some cases dogs can show their teeth as if it were a smile.
In reality, these gestures do not indicate guilt, as they are signs of calm ; These appeasement signals are part of canine language, and are used to indicate that they don’t want to cause trouble. In other words, when a dog makes a ‘guilty face’, he is actually telling his owner not to scold him because he is having a bad time.
Other signs of calm
Most of the canine language is part of the calm signals. Others that they frequently do are the following:
- Lick his nose. Your dog does not lick because the food is tasty, but because he gets excited when you bring him the plate and tries to calm down.
- Turn your head . When we take out the cell phone and we want to take a picture of it, our dog almost always turns its head : it is because the cell phone intimidates it and asks us to move it away.
- Sniff the ground. It happens a lot that, when we are in the park, and we call our dog angrily, it slowly approaches and may stop somewhere to sniff. He is doing this because we have called him too energetically, and he is telling us that he does not want us to get angry.
Distinguish right from wrong
Dogs cannot distinguish good from evil, since these are two philosophical concepts typical of the human being. However, dogs do know whether their actions carry positive or negative consequences.
That is why they show all those signs of calm: they know that what they have done is going to cause their owner to get angry or scold them; he may even hit you. Since it is unpleasant, they try to appease it with signs of calm, but many humans misinterpret these signals and they like to punish and scold; and dogs know it.
Also, they are very good observers. And it is that before humans get angry, they begin to detect that there is something we do not like and they go ahead with the signs of calm.
Why do dogs misbehave
A priori , dogs do not want to misbehave. Humans have genetically selected dogs for thousands of years who wanted to please us, so they never want to hurt their humans or cause them disgust. So the guilty face of a dog is not because of what it has done: it is because of its consequences.
When we see a dog who misbehaves, it is usually because he cannot help himself. Dogs that destroy things when they are left home alone are not taking revenge, as are those that rummage in the garbage.
Normally, these dogs get so overwhelmed or stressed that they have to download it somewhere. We must know that dogs manage to relax through the jaw.
That is, a dog that destroys things all he does is try to relax. If a dog misbehaves it is because he is out of control and cannot help himself.
Therefore, they then ask for our forgiveness and ask that we not punish them. They have behaved badly because they have lost control, not because they wanted to do it badly.
Prevent your dog from misbehaving
Preventing the dog from having such a bad time that he is forced to bite or break things is in our hands. We are responsible for our dog reaching the point of losing control, and needing to bite what is within reach.
Therefore, we must anticipate the problems that it does not know how to solve. Each dog and each case has a different solution, and we are the ones who know our dog best.
Many times, there are dogs that destroy the cushions or tear the clothes of their humans because they do not have toys or objects of their own to gnaw. It turns out that chewing and gnawing are basic needs in any canine species: if we don’t provide it with a suitable object, it will look for it on its own. Tooth cleaning sticks, dry tendons, raw bones with meat… You will prefer them to cushions.
Thus, we have to prevent our pet from going through situations in which it reacts badly. For example, if you fight with the dogs at the dog park, it might be a better option not to go; or go only when there are no dogs inside.
Dogs that have a very difficult time when they are alone at home, and that not even with gnawing toys are able to calm down, should go to a canine educator. Separation anxiety is a complex problem that must be treated as if it were a health problem by a specialist.
They do not distinguish good from evil, so there is no guilty face of a dog. However, they do know that we are going to get angry and they try to apologize even if we do not listen to them, so anticipate the problems that your dog may cause and you will both be happier.
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Main image source: Austin Kirk
