Your Dog Doesn’t Know Why You’re Mad

When something goes wrong and you get mad, your dog isn’t going to fully understand what is going on with you. In scenarios where your dog does something and it upsets you, your dog is generally going to look at you and become nervous based on your body language and the fact that you’re yelling. This nervousness isn’t going to translate to “oh, I did the wrong thing and now my parent is mad.”

What is really happening is that your dog is developing the association that when something happens, like pee or poo in the house, and you come around, you get scary. This is why people see their dog “look guilty” when they get home. It’s because they’re afraid of their person’s reaction.

Scary humans don’t lead to better behaviors due to “obedience.” They lead to a change in behavior due to avoidance of the scary thing. (You.)