The guilty is in quotes for a reason.
Do dogs really experience guilt? Do they know what they did to elicit anger from their human? The answer is most likely no.
You have probably seen the most popular of guilty dog, Denver.
Denver's dad finds a chewed up bag of cat treats and when asked if he "did it" he squints, displays a grimace and cowers, hence the "guilty" look.
There are a host of other "guilty" dog videos posted on the web.
While some people think these are cute and funny, the problem is that some people will have the mistaken impression that dogs actually feel guilt and know what they did to make you angry.
When people have this mistaken impression, rather than addressing the problem through training or behavior modification, they will just continue to reprimand the dog after the fact and say things like, see that guilty look on his face, he knows what he did was wrong.
So what's up with the guilty faces and body postures we see in these videos? The dogs certainly look like they know what they did was wrong because they are looking down or away, squinting/blinking, rolling over on their bellies, ears pinned back or even submissive grinning.
These are all classic signs of appeasement or submission.
All the dog knows is that you are upset and this is threatening.
This comes from your body language (looming over the dog, eyes furrowed, mouth tight) and tone of voice.
Fido just wants you to not be mad at him so he is offering his body language as a way of communicating to you that, whatever it is that is causing you to have that body language, tone of voice (and god forbid a smack or other correction), maybe you will stop if I act submissive.
In a dog pack submissive and appeasement behaviors are meant to diffuse or calm a situation, hence your dog is just saying, dude, I'm no threat, just chill.
In the video of Denver, you might ask, then why does one dog act guilty and the other does not? I would hazard a guess that Denver has been caught doing naughty things in the past like ripping into a bag of treats and has been more harshly reprimanded even though he isn't in this video.
Denver has most likely come to associate a chewed up bag of treats with threatening body language and tone of voice directed at him while the other dog has not made this same association.
Denver would likely offer these guilty looking behaviors any time there is a chewed up bag on the floor whether he did it or not.
For example, testing has been done with dogs who have a bad habit, say shredding the newspaper.
They have been reprimanded for this in the past.
If the human leaves the room and someone else shreds the newspaper the dog will still act guilty when the human returns regardless of whether he actually did the shredding, again because he has made the association between shredded newspaper and threatening body language from the human.
The point of this is not to reprimand your dog for something they did wrong unless you catch them in the act.
Dogs will not make the association between what they did wrong and why you're upset unless you catch them in the act and reprimand accordingly, e.
g.
a strong eh-eh with positive reinforcement for a desired behavior.
For example, don't reprimand your dog for soiling in the house, instead clean it up and think about what you can do differently next time to prevent accidents.
If you do catch him in the act of soiling, don't startle him but rather say eh-eh and get him outside where you praise him/treat him for going potty in the appropriate spot.
Depending on the behavior issue, your dog might just need a little more exercise or perhaps some training perhaps your pup needs daily dog walks to expend some of that extra energy or maybe he needs training of some alternate behaviors.