Monday, June 15, 2009

Dog's Guilty Looks are Human Values

Researchers recently published a study in which they showed that dog owners who perceived their dogs to look guilty were in fact not guilty of committing any misbehavior.  According to the linked article, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5517394/Owners-imagine-dogs-guilty-looks.html,"The results indicate that the so-called guilty look is a response to owner scolding; it is not expressed more often when actually guilty."  This is something that I have found challenging to convince owners of, until they realize that the dog is simply trying to get to a safer place when they try to make themselves smaller and hunker down toward the ground to get away from the owner when the owner is upset.  Now there is a research study that proves humans place human emotions onto dogs' reactions and incorrectly perceive them to look guilty.....Michael Burkey, CDBC.

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