There is no question who is to blame when the owner finds his slippers in shreds upon returning home. A look into the dog's eyes is usually enough to make sure. The head is bowed; the look, submissive, directed upwards: a doggy look that reveals the wrongdoer.
But apparently pet friends are wrong. Biologist Alexandra Horowitz, of Barnard College in New York, showed in a study that the "guilty look" of a dog does not indicate at all if it has really behaved badly. It is simply a reaction to the reproaches made by the owner.
Men and dogs relationship
In one experiment, dog owners instructed their pets not to touch some food that had been placed in the room. After the owners left the room, one group of dogs were given food, and others were not. Then all the participants were told that their dogs had not respected the prohibition.
The surprising result: those dogs that were reprimanded with particular emphasis showed in the judgment of the owners an unequivocally 'guilty' look, no matter if they had eaten the forbidden delicacy or not. "It's just what the owners want to see," says Alexandra Horowitz.
Apparently, we humans tend to transfer our own moral ideas and behaviors to our animal companions. The closer and the more time we spend with them, the more prone we are to this type of judgment.
