Dog Refusing to Make Eye Contact When Being Told Off Goes Viral

A video of a dog appearing to look guilty while being scolded for ruining a garment is going viral on TikTok, where it has received 7.7 million views at the time of writing.

The clip, shared by TikTok user Beatrice Albino (@bea.albino) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, showed a stoic dog staring right into the camera as a person yells at it while holding what appeared to be a piece of clothing with a hole in it.

Sitting still on a couch without moving its gaze, barely blinking, and with its ears flipped backward throughout the scolding, the pooch later quietly slipped off the sofa and escaped to a bed in another room as the video ended.

As guilt-ridden as the dog may have seemed in the latest video, do dogs feel the emotion?

"Probably not," said veterinarian Dr. Lynn Buzhardt in an article for VCA, one of North America's largest animal hospital chains.

"Pets may not feel a sense of wrongdoing because they don't understand that what they did was wrong," she wrote, adding that a pet's body posture and attitude "do not indicate" [their] guilt or remorse," but instead indicates its "response to your body posture and attitude."

So, those "guilty looks," such as the avoidance of eye contact as seen in the latest video, are signs of "fear, concern, and anxiety of the pet in response to the agitated, angry look and sound of their owner," according to Buzhardt.

"Your cat or dog immediately responds with a submissive posture that you interpret as guilt. But this submissive action doesn't reflect guilt. It is an effort to appease or calm you. And it often works! You look at that sad face and cave. Your anger and frustration evaporate!" she wrote.

Below are some ways that a dog may appear to look "guilty," but in reality is expressing fear and stress, as outlined by the nonprofit American Kennel Club:

• Tucked tail
• Visible whites of the eyes
• Cowering, hunched posture
• Yawning
• Licking
• Flattened ears
• Avoiding eye contact

The latest video has seen several TikTokers in stitches.

In a comment that got 2,078 likes, user Freedom said the dog must have been thinking: "I won't answer that question."

CrunchyRN said the dog must have thought: "Just ignore it and it will go away..."

OscarfromtheBean noted the dog must have been thinking: "If I don't move he can't see me," while user 90percleg wrote it may have saying: "I can't see I'm blind."

JuicCyJerriCa wrote: "She know she in trouble lmao [crying laughing face emojis]."

Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment. This video has not been independently verified.