Some of these scenarios may be too familiar to you: He pooped on the floor at home. He chewed something you wished he didn’t. He knocked down a rubbish bin and ate whatever inside. When you confront your dog and shout “bad dog”, he has a guilty look on his face. But the truth is…

Their “guilty” look is distinctive – the dog cowers, showing the whites of its eyes while looking up at you. Perhaps he pins its ears a bit back to its head or licks the air. We, humans, are wired to see these signs as a guilty look. It’s nobody fault that in fact we misattribute based on our own human emotions.

Alexandra Horowitz, a dog cognitive scientist and an author of “Inside a dog: what dogs see, smell and know” studies and examines how dogs perceive the world. She points out a dog seemingly showing a “guilty” look is actually demonstrating fear of scolding (“owner cues”) rather than guilt (“an understanding of and a reflection on a misdeed”)

So, before applying the language of human emotions to dogs, remember things might not be what they seem.