First time visitor here.

After reading this article I thought it was so nice to see someone that doesn’t needlessly anthropomorphise dogs.

Yes, your dog will cower if it suspects you are about to explode over something, but no, this is definitely not anything related to human guilt. The dog is just afraid that a member of its pack is about to attack. The ears down, tail down, lip licking type behaviour you see is just a dog trying (in dog terms) to appease a threat.

Dogs that have been beaten and don’t understand why, tend to become vicious (in self defence) and this can often end in the dog being destroyed. Such a shame. With a little understanding that a dog is a dog and not a human being with fur, all this can be avoided.
Dangerous Dogs´s last blog ..Dangerous Dogs – In the Media

Excellent argument. There is nothing like good debate.

I still maintain that guilt is a learned emotion much like jealousy but I enjoyed your post and your comment. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

I agree with you about my response towards my dog. I will have to change my habits.

As for anthropomorphism I can’t help it. I am a human too!

Joseph.

[P.S. sometimes your captcha doesn't work very well. I see that you use a WordPress blog. There is a plugin called no captcha that works just as good at blocking spam. Sorry it is actually called wp captcha free.]

You are assuming that human children and dogs think and interpret the world in the same way. That, actually, is anthropomorphism. Dogs do not interpret actions the same way kids do.

So if I punish my puppy for jumping the baby gates, he will never think that his behavior is ‘wrong’. He will only realize that jumping the baby gates is dangerous. But when no one is home, it’s safe to still do so. Because dogs don’t have a sense of right and wrong.

This is actually a very common dog training error. People don’t understand why their dogs will continue to jump on the couch, shred the garbage, and jump baby gates, when no one is home. But not do it when someone is home. It’s the Save v Dangerous issue.

I love my dogs for who they are, and I love that they are different from humans… actually, that’s why I love them!

However, I’m not so sure about your dogs-don’t-feel-guilt argument. If you brought up children the same way they wouldn’t feel guilt either.

In order to feel guilt you have to a have some idea of what is right or wrong and you have to learn that from others. It isn’t something that we have automatically. It becomes ingrained through interaction with other people.

We may be the apex predator but we are still animals even if we don’t always like to think so.

The problem we have is anthropomorphism. Dog’s don’t necessarily try to ‘read’ their owners, they just smell us. They smell our emotions.

I recently wrote an article on dogs. I would be delighted if you would give it the once over.