Behaviorists: Dogs feel no shame despite the look

[The Straight Story]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The next time you start shaking your finger and shouting "Shame on you!" because your dog chewed up your favorite fuzzy slippers, just remember that no matter how guilty your dog looks, it doesn't know what your rant is about.

Behaviorists insist dogs lack shame. The guilty look — head cowered, ears back, eyes droopy — is a reaction to the tantrum you are throwing now over the damage they did hours earlier.

"Just get over it and remind yourself not to put temptation in the way next time," said Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a professor at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine and executive director of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists.

But scientific findings haven't put a dent in the popularity of online dog shaming sites like dogshaming.com and shameyourpet.com or videos like those posted on youtube.com/crackrockcandy. In the photos and videos, dogs wear humorous written "confessions" and often are surrounded by the remnants of their misdeeds. There is no question that in some photos, they look guilty of eating, drinking, chewing, licking or destroying something they shouldn't have.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/behaviorists-dogs-feel-no-shame-despite-look

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Behaviorists would also deny that YOU feel shame--or at least,

that your feelings have anything to do with your behavior. Mental states are at best epiphenomena.

Other psychologists have been blowing holes in the hull of behaviorism for many decades (e.g. see Harry Harlow's address to the American Psychological Association in about 1951, later printed as H F HARLOW. (1953). Mice, monkeys, men, and motives. Psychological review. doi:10.1037/h0056040). Unfortunately, that hull refuses to sink, presumably because it's so lightweight.

[gordianot]

2. Sounds like dogs share at least one attribute "no shame" with extreme human Conservatives.

[liberal N proud]

3. Training a dog is all about timing

You have to catch them pooping on the floor to reprimand them and teach them to go outside.

We had a dog that pooped behind a chair every night, we couldn't break her until I heard her prowling one night. I decided to prowl as well and managed to come over the back of the chair just as she was hunched up to poop. When she saw me, she knew what she was doing was wrong and she had been had. She never pooped in the house again.

[NaturalHigh]

4. I could have told them this a month after we got our Cairn Terrier.

[Iggo]

5. Next you'll be telling me they're not human at all, but dogs instead.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. just recently there was a study declaring that dogs had secondary emotions

such as shame/guilt

[newfie11]

7. Well my Newfoundlands can put on a good imitation of shame

Every time things disappear off the counter they are very sorry. The roast, cookies, chips, etc must have called to them.

[hobbit709]

8. If Marcy has done something she knows she shouldn't have, she hides before I find it.