In a viral TikTok video, a golden retriever gets told off for being annoying—his reaction to being scolded melts hearts across social-media users.
The heartwarming video, shared on Saturday by @inboxunknown15, shows the pup sitting head down, facing the wall, looking sad and ashamed after being scolded by his owner’s girlfriend. “I told my boyfriend’s dog ‘stop annoying me’ and now he’s like this” the poster writes in the video. “What do I do guys?” she adds in the caption.
Seeing the pup facing the wall, almost like punishing himself, might seem like an admission of guilt, but, according to experts, it actually isn’t.
Research shows that, despite appearing guilty after doing something wrong, canines don’t actually feel guilt the way humans do.
The “guilty” look that dogs give—such as avoiding eye contact or crouching—is actually triggered by their owner’s angry tone or body language, not an understanding of wrongdoing.
Canines who get scolded show signs of “guilt” regardless of whether they have misbehaved, and obedient dogs still look “guilty” when their owners respond to them negatively.
These so-called guilty behaviors are actually signs of fear and stress, not remorse. Common stress signals include lip licking, tail tucking, squinting, and flattened ears. We often misinterpret these as guilt because they resemble human expressions of it.
Dogs are capable of basic emotions like joy, fear, anxiety, sadness, and love—similar to a toddler around 2 years old—but they don’t experience complex emotions such as guilt, shame, or pride.
This is why they don’t truly understand punishment. Scolding often leads dogs to hiding their behavior, rather than learning from it.
The video quickly went viral on social media and has so far received over 1.3 million views and more than 181,000 likes on the platform.
Newsweek reached out to @@inboxunknown15 for comment via TikTok comments. We could not verify the details of the case.
One user, JDay, commented: “You better apologize. Not even kidding.”
Iflookscouldchill said: “This is unacceptable. He needs a proper apology, spa weekend, pup cups and 1 on 1 connection time.”
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