# Percieved Remorse???



## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

The oddest thing happened to me last night. I was called to assist another agency to attempt to locate the driver of a stolen vehicle that fled from them, then crashed into a city park. The driver was reported to be a white female and there was a passenger as well. Both parties were gone prior to the crash being located.

I deployed my dog from the driver's door as that is the person whom I needed to find and, per policy, is the only person whom I could make a physical apprehension on due to the criminal nature of the incident. My boy conducted a beautiful 200 yard track through a neighborhood and we found a teenage boy hiding in some hedges between 2 houses. The guy was taken into custody without incident but the female driver was still outstanding. I redeployed the dog and immediately he told me there was another person in the area. The female, 15 yoa, was hiding behind a pop up trailer and was circling around it in an effort to conceal herself from us. My boy was not tricked at all and he engaged her before I even knew she was there. She also was taken into custody. Through the investigation it was determined that the male was in fact the driver (he had long hair and girlish features) which tells me all the discrimination tracking training is paying off as my boy stayed on target. It was good to see this.

Here's the weird thing....although my boy engaged the female nicely, when it was over I could see a strange change in his demeanor. It's hard to explain and some might think I'm nuts but, he actually looked sad. He was not his normal self for a few minutes. Now, I was feeling extremely bad for biting a 15 year old girl. She looked very much like my daughter whom my boy loves very very much. It may have been my demeanor that caused him to show this reaction but It was definately something that I saw in him. We are all taught to believe that dogs don't exhibit human type feelings and I get that but, there was something there and I know I saw it in his demeanor. Am I losing it or has anyone else seen anything similar? Previous engagements on men did not seem to have the same effect. This was his second female physical apprehension. I saw no such behavior on the first female.


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## Misty Wegner (May 22, 2015)

First, let me congratulate you on two excellently run trails! Nice job 

As to dogs having emotions.. I believe those that try to relegate dogs into a box and say because they are an animal they can't have certain emotions, has just not been around them long enough (or cared enough to find out) to see it happen.. I'm not saying that it isn't easy to want to anthropromophise things, however, I know I've seen enough 'what the heck!?' moments where my dog(s) have reacted in a way I can only attribute to an emotion we reserve for humans... But, if the animals spend so much time with us, learn our ways and develop large vocabulary (my animals have a very large vocabulary - may not understand implicitly but understand subjectively) we can they not also learn and imitate emotions? 

Just my thoughts and opinions


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Thank you for your sentiments Misty. Reflecting back on the incident I did react differently to the physical apprehension as opposed to the no bite apprehension. I was pretty upset after finding that the girl was so young...and that she looked like my daughter. My boy may well have seen that in me. He may well have thought he did wrong even though he was commanded. The old adage that your emotions run down the lead very well could be in play here. Not that the lead is the vehicle, but that the dog can read us better than we can read them. Kinda spooky actually.

I've heard stories of SAR/HRD dogs at the twin towers that actually displayed similar behavior. Was it that they were just worked too hard? Was it the heavy metals they inhaled? Was it the sadness in the handlers. Who's to say?


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Howard, 

Congrats on the great track. You feel bad about the dog biting a girl but if she had not run in the first place or played hide-and-seek then she would not be dealing with the consequences of her actions. Very happy to hear your boy did a real nice job with the track and apprehensions.

My dogs live in my hip pocket, as it were, and they are not kenneled so we spend a lot of working and off time in each others' company. Just like your wife (or kids) react to your emotions my dogs react to mine just as yours reacts to you. Normally, when your dog bites a bad guy, you are pumped and stoked which the dog reads and he reads your silent approval. Instead of you feeling stoked and pumped for this girl he caught, you are sad and not happy. Your dog reads this and although he did his job you are unhappy, not with the job he did, but the results. Call him a silent sympathizer or whatever. He's unhappy because you are unhappy.

Do dogs have emotions? There is enough anecdotal evidence to support it. I don't believe they are the stupid, dumb beasts that people like to feel they are. They feel pain, they exhibit happiness, so why not shared remorse for an action taken?


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## Mike Di Rago (Jan 9, 2009)

How many female decpys has your dog been confronted to in training scenarios?
Mike


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Very nice finds!

When I was training my first SAR dog (Australian Shepherd) the team had the chance to go the the Body Farm in Knoxville.

She was very good with HR but had never seen a full body.

I had to take her out of the enclosure because she was freaking out in avoidance.

For then next 5 mins or so she couldn't settle down.

She was a very sound dog but the next day she didn't want to go back in. 

I was told by the folks there that her response wasn't terribly uncommon and they seemed to think some dogs were just to sensitive to human death.


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Thank you Sarah. My boy stays in the house and is only kenneled maybe 30% of the time. He's your typical Mali type dog, loves his family.

Mike. My boy has been exposed to no less than a dozen female decoys. Only 2 of which were previously known to him. He has engaged them in a suit, and in a muzzle. He has tracked them and found them in building and area searches. He will agress on them just as he would a man. We do our best to expose our dogs to every situation possible. It's not feasible to hit them all but we do our best.


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## Mike Di Rago (Jan 9, 2009)

Thanks for clearing that up.I was just wondering if it could have been an exposure issue,not trying to be a dink.
Mike


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Not at all. That would be the first thing to pop into my mind if someone else had posted this.  That is why it seemed strange to me because I know how he's been trained. Maybe I should have put that in the original post.


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## Tom Connors (Dec 30, 2012)

Very interesting to read. Since studies show dogs are better than chimps at reading human emotions, I'd suspect yours was reading you but food for thought. For HRD dogs, handlers often forget to train or don't have access to large sources of scent. We used to take a variety of sources and hide them in laid out clothing including shoes to represent a body.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Tom Connors said:


> Very interesting to read. Since studies show dogs are better than chimps at reading human emotions, I'd suspect yours was reading you but food for thought. For HRD dogs, handlers often forget to train or don't have access to large sources of scent. We used to take a variety of sources and hide them in laid out clothing including shoes to represent a body.



That was also part of our training and never had the issue I did with the Aussie at the Body Farm.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

alternatives to consider ??

1. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/do-dogs-feel-guilty/

2. maybe study how kinesics affects dog and human interactions ? I recently attended a lecture on the subject and although there was no canine content, it made me think a LOT more of the role kinesics plays in our relationships with canines


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Hi Rick. Good article. Was speaking to my friend in the UK yesterday about this, He has a link to a study about dogs reading human facial expressions and body language that are apparently much more involved than previously thought. More than chimps supposedly. I'm waiting for him to find it so I can post it here.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Thanks for the article Rick!

Not guilt related but there was a recent Nat Geo (I think) on TV and it showed that dogs are the only animal, including wolves and chimps that understand what we are doing when we point at an article we want them to go to.

The chimp and wolf were completely clueless to our pointing. 

The belief is that our quest for a dog that could live with us or perform for us has unknowingly, brought to the surface genes that were totally unconnected to what we were looking for and this connection or understanding was the result.


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

As promised

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ople-feeling-happy-sad-ve-never-met-them.html

https://www.rt.com/uk/328769-dogs-understand-human-emotions/


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Thanks Howard!

Human emotion and dogs is one thing I've always believed in.

I learned that as a kid with my GSD/Collie.

Taffy was a high drive dog but there were times in my growing yrs that wasn't so much fun and she read me like a book.

We could sit for for hours and she would just lay her head on me till I got up and moved.

Then she would follow me wherever and lay down next to me with her head on my foot.

Any other time she would be bringing me balls, toys or a stick to toss and would be just short of a pia.

My present dog Thunder has shown the same thing.

He's not big on contact with most folks outside the family but one Sunday when we went herding he walked up to my herding teacher who was sitting on the back of her van and calmly gave her a kiss on the face.

He NEVER did that outside family and then it was only with the grandkids.

Turns out the one of her dogs had passed.

She didn't say anything until Thunder did that because she was as surprised as I was. 

Trooper is also very handler sensitive and reads my moods like a book.


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Thanks Bob. Hard to ignore things like that.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

Very interesting article, and not trying to throw cold water on this emotional subject, but i feel strongly that we tend to attach a human explanation to events that may not be connected when it comes to our animals, and sometimes we might overestimate interactions and connect dots that aren’t there.

What Bob related could be an example. Most of the “scientific" community would probably agree his dog could have had NO idea the person had just lost her dog, and was only responding to a “look” it received when it looked at that person at that particular time. It might not have had anything to do with any expression of empathy. We can never know for sure since unfortunately they can’t talk to us.

Also, when we do 'connect the dots' in these kind of situations, it tends to strengthen the bonds we already have with our pets. That may be why we don’t connect dots that do NOT strengthen those bonds and don’t remember them as well, and why they don’t stick in our minds.

Case in point that happened a few days ago at my place.
We just lost a cat. He died a natural death in our living room on the sofa. We have a few other cats, but this guy was the ONLY cat my dog ever showed an interest in. And this cat was also VERY attached to my dog. Their mutual bond was VERY evident, but why they happened to like each other so much was never clear.
- When I saw my cat and picked him up, I had tears in my eyes. My dog was on his favorite chair looking right at me and could see my face. No reaction from my dog. Inside, i’m sure I was looking for some kind of reaction….but nothing. I put the cat back down and got a little box and wrapped him in a towell to get ready to take him out to the backyard. I set the box down next to the chair my dog was in, but the box didn’t even get a glancing look. I was hoping for some kind of reaction but my dog was looking at me. When i got up and walked over to the door, the only reaction i got from my dog was the usual excitement that he knew he was going out for a walkabout.

- If my dog had shown any expression of empathy for either his buddy, or for my sorrow, I am SURE i would have been telling others about it and it would have made a lasting impression on me. But that didn’t happen so I will just have to chalk it up as him being a dog and not try and figure out why

For sure, dogs have been living with humans for so long and they certainly need to learn how to read us. But they don’t always respond for the reasons we would like them to respond. And for SURE, dogs have emotions, but not human emotions. We all know they are not "four legged humans" but we will never stop talking to them like they are, and there’s nothing wrong with that 

We are still vigorously debating whether human empathy is genetic based or learned behavior, and whether it is a survival instinct or not.
“Survival of the Kindest” has only been coined in the last couple decades. The effect of elevated cortisol levels was thought to be a significant “breakthrough” factor, but the debate still persists. MANY more studies have been done compared to canine research on this subject.

Maybe this canine study is easy for us to accept because deep down it’s what we all want to hear. Who knows ? I don’t think it should be considered conclusive and I don’t expect enough canine research will ever be done to confirm it one way other. I’m not saying the study was biased; just saying we tend to believe what we want to believe

But one thing we can all recognize and be thankful for is how quickly dogs can adapt to adversity and move on. They do that MUCH better than us humans, and I wish that behavior would be studied in depth. We could learn a LOT from it


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Perhaps your dog knew that the animal was in the dying process and had already processed that before you saw the physical expression of the "end". Possibly there were behaviors exhibited earlier that you didn't notice or associate with what was to come.

No need to reply. I'm not looking to debate this topic or have what I said dissected. I simply thought it might be something you hadn't considered.


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## Misty Wegner (May 22, 2015)

Interesting thought Rick.. I know humans don't always respond appropriately or even at all in some situations that should require empathy, sympathy or some other emotional response.. I don't expect my dog to respond to all my emotions, or even know I having them.. What is surprising is that they do respond at all, and especially attached times I don't expect it... Anapromorphic thought is definitely is a potential liability when allowing the dogs to get a way with murder, but I think, objectively, if we look at how often working dogs and those pets that are a strong part of their owners lives learn, imitate, and act upon their own emotional content and their owners.. Be it different from ours or otherwise.. Guess we will always wonder as we don't have a way to know for sure


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

rick smith said:


> .... but i feel strongly that we tend to attach a human explanation to events that may not be connected when it comes to our animals, and sometimes we might overestimate interactions and connect dots that aren’t there.


Its just a thought but we attach human explanations because its the only ones we know. Not saying right or wrong but we have no other way to explain it. People say we attach human emotions to animals but we know no other kind. But I don't think we (humans) are the only ones to feel pain, anger, happiness, or sorrow.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

I fully understand we explain behaviors based on human interpretations because it's humans who are doing the interpreting
- it's always an issue in animal behavior studies

not debating that part at all, and why i added : "....that may not be connected when it comes to our animals, and sometimes we might overestimate interactions and connect dots that aren’t there."

i hope people don't think that i don't feel animals have emotions; especially canines and felines...of course they do, and because they live so close to us we should recognize that they do

simplest examples are new dog owners who look at canine behavior and connect dots that aren't there to explain behaviors like "canine jealousy"...or interpret canine fear as aggression, etc


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

i think the more we can apply kinesics to our own behavior the easier it will be to study canine behavior

the seminar i went to recently made me think about how it relates to dog training, even tho the seminar had nothing to do with dogs //LOL//


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Do dogs get jealous? Apparently.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201111/do-dogs-feel-jealousy-and-envy

and this article.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...g-feel-jealous-or-is-that-a-purely-human-flaw


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

new dog owners try to CONNECT DOTS THAT AREN'T THERE and that is one of the main reasons they fail to learn how to read their dogs, and then allow them to develop behaviors that later become problems
- overhumanizing...over anthropomorphic..lack of dog reading skills...call it whatever you want

- "my dog bit that guy because he was protecting me"
- "my dog won't listen to me because he/she's stubborn"
- "he's jealous of all my boyfriends"
been there; seen it ... too many times ](*,)

really don't want to provide alternative interpretations to those studies. 

I still think we are better off to study our own kinesics if we want to read our dogs better because i think we we are all guilty of not being aware of how we cue our dogs' behaviors

so we'll agree to disagree ... as usual //LOL//


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Consider seizure dogs etc.. Do they read/feel the human emotion, or is it just scent based?


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

I was going to comment on that but didn't want to derail this thread. Add diabetic alert and cancer detection just to name a few other specialized uses. Scent based origins is likely but there may be a basis for it being connected to an electrical origin as in contained within cellular energy. Further expand that to the known origin or cause of seizures and it seems plausible. Or the situation where the dog seems to know when the owner is going to arrive home even when off schedule or arriving in a different vehicle. This is getting a bit off track, or... maybe it's not.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

i read a cancer detection study quite a few years back....detection was scent based at that time
- the med K9 work is often hard to accept by the MD's

border patrol K9's, customs K9's.....
- are the humans looking for body language and other Kinesic based signs ?
- but aren't the dogs trained for scent discrimination ?
--- who does a better job ?
... i suggest team based, not a competition between the two, but if the handler is cueing the dog without being aware of it, it's a problem right ?

interesting thread in many areas


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

I'm going to assume that all of the above examples are scent based. My pea brain can only grasp that as a plausible explanation. Anything that happens in the human body that's out of the norm surely causes molecular change no matter how slight. It makes sense to me but still doesn't explain my original experience unless I had a hurricane of F-ed up molecules raging out of me.


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Howard, I think of it in terms of a working cadence (think rhythm or a heartbeat of sort) that is developed from partnerships like the one you have with your dog. Something interrupted that. What exactly it was or the origin of such may not ever be known or understood by you. Was it you, was it him, was it a lack of one thing preceding or following another that made it appear incomplete, lacking or, translate in a new way to you? Go with your gut on this, rarely is your initial reaction / feeling about something wrong.

BTW, I speculate that the conflict you experienced with understanding what happened has much to do with what you have been conditioned to believe through prior training and life experiences. One of my past dogs, who was very clean by nature once stepped in a pile of shit. Sheer and utter disgust is what I saw after he did that. It wasn't just by what I interpreted the look on his face to represent, it was the sum of what was expressed throughout his entire body language and behavior after that, which left me with that impression.


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

There's the rub. We know our dogs so well that anything out of the ordinary is easily detected by us. We have no choice but to attach a human based emotion description to it. Something definately changed their normal body language and we struggle to describe it in understandable terms. Dog people are loathe to be extreme in these interpetations compared to the average person but something IS going on. The weird thing about it is, I find it more intriguing than confusing.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

over thousands of years, dogs have had to adapt to humans much much more than humans have had to adapt to dogs. that's why i think they read us better than we read them. that, plus the fact they will never be able to hold a conversation with us, is why we will never get clear answers to our questions 
...and it certainly won't stop us from having conversations with them //LOL//

i just sit back and enjoy the intrigue and try and be more observant. on MANY occasions i enjoy doing nothing but watch my dog observe the world around it


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Regardless of our interpretations being right or wrong I think those who really watch their dogs and try to understand them are the ones that will be better trainers in the long run. 

Even though I personally have strong feelings about my perceptions of their "feelings" I also feel that those who look at their dogs as their children can possibly be loosing a lot by not looking further into it. 

Do I love my dogs? Absolutely!

They are a part of my family but they are NOT my children. They are my dogs.


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