Do animals have a sense of humiliation?

I know my dog looks at us seemingly with a sheepish expression then runs and hides whenever she walks into walls.

It happens a lot.

yes. our beagle was embarassed about wearing the bikini my daughter bought
her. Altho, Oliver loves his sparkly black disco sweather and preens about the house…i suspect they’re just like us in more ways than we know.

We had a dog the seemed to be embarrassed when he was caught in the cats litter box eating a “Almond Roca.” He would look at us like he knew he made a mistake and cat litter would be all over his nose. It was gross, but funny.

If someone knows how to bring it up, the story of my now departed dog shows quite a range of emotion from my animal pup.

We have 5 cats in our house and although they get along very well, there is the occasional spat between them. When we lightly scold them for this, they bow their heads a bit and slink away like they know that they’ve been bad. This would be my example that says yes, somehow, they do have a sense of humiliation.

Whenever my dog gets sick and goes on the carpet he gets a weird look on his face as I’m cleaning it. I’m no expert in animal psychology but I think sometimes that he’s ashamed. Also, he tries to avoid me for a while afterwards.

Just from observing my cats behaviors, I’d say they do.

all i have to say is: who did that? The looks are priceless…my golden trys to hide…she sticks her head under the sofa and thinks the rest of her is hidden as well.

My dog knows when he’s been bad. All I have to do is hold the chewed-up thing and look at him, and he looks sad, the tail and ears go down and he goes and mopes.

here’s a great article about dog’s emotions.

@Fireside; One of the sweetest, funniest and saddest articles I have read in a long time. It’s a wonderful counterpoint to all the election braying and praying. Thank you.

of course they do, why else do they always try to play it off when they fall? haha

a good example of that was with my cat, there was a large piece of glass leaning against one of the corners of a couch he always jumped on, and one night he went to jump on it, ran straight into the glass and tried to act like nothing happened but you could tell he was totally confused, haha

@fireside, that made me cry. Very nice. Boo hoo hoooooo

I watched a video from the library about cat behavior. Apparently, cats will groom themselves to relieve stress. I’ve noticed that when she falls off a chair or her cat condo, she pretends like she meant to, takes three steps, and starts cleaning herself. Totally embarrassed.

@fireside: Oh, sadness, why did you have to spring that on me? I read that in the Washington Post Magazine and was heartbroken. Stupid Gene luring me in with his promises of funnies and then switchin’ it up.

Maybe this will help

Hee, he’s wearing glass like a hoomin. Dogs rule

God, help me. I love macros.

Have you ever seen a cat “loose it’s cool?”