Are owners' reports of their dogs' 'guilty look' influenced by the dogs' action and evidence of the misdeed?
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ostojic L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4310318 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Are owners' reports of their dogs' 'guilty look' influenced by the dogs' action and evidence of the misdeed?
Ostojić Ljerka L Tkalčić Mladenka M Clayton Nicola S NS
Behavioural processes 20150103
While dog owners claim that their dogs' greeting behaviour after having performed a misdeed indicates the dogs' 'guilt', current experimental evidence suggests that dogs show these 'guilty look' behaviours as a response to being scolded by their owners. Given reports that 'guilty look' behaviours are shown also in the absence of being scolded, we investigated whether the dogs' own actions or the evidence of a misdeed might serve as triggering cues. We manipulated whether or not dogs ate a 'forbi ...[more]
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