{"id":17314,"date":"2014-03-03T10:30:51","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/?p=17314"},"modified":"2025-03-03T13:10:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T12:10:36","slug":"dogs-feel-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/","title":{"rendered":"Dogs feel no shame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dog owners are all too familiar with the infamous puppy dog eyes our furry friends pull when they\u2019ve done wrong. However animal behaviour experts are now telling us to ignore those guilty looks as dogs supposedly feel no shame.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The ashamed expression dogs do so well is just a reaction to their owner\u2019s behaviour when they scold them. They do not actually understand what the angry outburst is about.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-17315 aligncenter\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes-690x473.jpg\" alt=\"puppy dog eyes\" width=\"690\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes-690x473.jpg 690w, https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes-930x638.jpg 930w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dr Bonnie Beaver, a professor at Texas A&amp;M University&#8217;s College of Veterinary Medicine has said that dogs can learn to distinguish between what is considered good and bad behaviour by their owners, if they are immediately punished when they\u2019ve misbehaved. &#8220;The farther it gets from that, the less connection is made with the behaviour,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>One of the first scientific studies on the guilty dog look was conducted in 2009 by associate professor of psychology at Barnard College in New York City, Alexandra Horowitz. She used 14 dogs in the study and videoed how they reacted when their owner left the room after telling them not to eat a treat.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17317 aligncenter\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes-4.jpg\" alt=\"puppy dog eyes 4\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When the owners returned, some had eaten the treats and some had not. &#8220;I found that the &#8216;look&#8217; appeared most often when owners scolded their dogs, regardless of whether the dog had disobeyed or did something for which they might or should feel guilty. It wasn&#8217;t &#8216;guilt&#8217; but a reaction to the owner that prompted the look,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>However \u2018dog-shaming\u2019 websites are still increasingly popular despite this research, with dogshaming.com having received more than 58 million views since 2012.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/dog-shaming-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17316 aligncenter\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/dog-shaming-3.jpg\" alt=\"dog shaming 3\" width=\"637\" height=\"823\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Creator of the site Pascale Lemire said this of our pooches guilty look, &#8220;My guess is that their thinking is: &#8216;Oh man, my owner is super-mad about something, but I don&#8217;t know what, but he seems to calm down when I give him the sad face, so let&#8217;s try that again\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those notorious &#8216;puppy-dog eyes&#8217; are apparently a myth as dogs don&#8217;t really feel guilty. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,757],"tags":[4,894,790],"class_list":["post-17314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-pet-lifestyle","tag-dog","tag-funny","tag-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>Dogs feel no shame \/ PetsPyjamas<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dogs feel no shame \/ PetsPyjamas\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Those notorious &#039;puppy-dog eyes&#039; are apparently a myth as dogs don&#039;t really feel guilty.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PetsPyjamas\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-03T09:30:51+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-03T12:10:36+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pets-blog-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2014\/02\/05122234\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"3464\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2378\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Imogen Rayfield\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Imogen Rayfield\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/\",\"name\":\"Dogs feel no shame \/ PetsPyjamas\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-03T09:30:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-03T12:10:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b4442a36c75f6121dccdcaf6f4acbb5\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg\",\"width\":3464,\"height\":2378},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"PetsPyjamas\",\"description\":\"No.1 for dog-friendly travel\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b4442a36c75f6121dccdcaf6f4acbb5\",\"name\":\"Imogen Rayfield\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3c8506224365057230be43b8944e13bb841612453f132e744780b60575f6b4d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3c8506224365057230be43b8944e13bb841612453f132e744780b60575f6b4d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Imogen Rayfield\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/author\/imogen\/\"}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dogs feel no shame \/ PetsPyjamas","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dogs feel no shame \/ PetsPyjamas","og_description":"Those notorious 'puppy-dog eyes' are apparently a myth as dogs don't really feel guilty.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/","og_site_name":"PetsPyjamas","article_published_time":"2014-03-03T09:30:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-03-03T12:10:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":3464,"height":2378,"url":"https:\/\/pets-blog-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2014\/02\/05122234\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Imogen Rayfield","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Imogen Rayfield","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/","url":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/","name":"Dogs feel no shame \/ PetsPyjamas","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg","datePublished":"2014-03-03T09:30:51+00:00","dateModified":"2025-03-03T12:10:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b4442a36c75f6121dccdcaf6f4acbb5"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/dogs-feel-shame\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg","width":3464,"height":2378},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/","name":"PetsPyjamas","description":"No.1 for dog-friendly travel","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b4442a36c75f6121dccdcaf6f4acbb5","name":"Imogen Rayfield","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3c8506224365057230be43b8944e13bb841612453f132e744780b60575f6b4d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3c8506224365057230be43b8944e13bb841612453f132e744780b60575f6b4d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Imogen Rayfield"},"url":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/author\/imogen\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/puppy-dog-eyes.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17314"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30176,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314\/revisions\/30176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petspyjamas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}