Learned behaviour.
As i thought i had explained. You reprimand your dog when you find a poo, yes?
So your dog learns that POO is bad. He cannot remember that him MAKING that poo in that place is bad, but he knows that if theres poo there, you will be angry.
So you go out, he needs to poo and so he must poo. You come home and he knows theres a poo the combination of poo + owner = bad. So he shows the guilty behaviour.
Thats why in the experiment where my friend took a poo out of the garden and put it in the kitchen, her dog then displayed his 'oh no ise done a poo ise in trouble' face. He HADNT done the poo in the kitchen but associated its presence with owner coming in to mean bad things (upset owner).... so he shows teh appeasement behaviour.
Dogs WANT to please us, they want this very badly so if this method worked, if dogs KNEW right from wrong (to have a concience one must know right from wrong), could feel 'guilt' then they wouldnt do this! And blatantly, they do.
Its a short step from believing dogs understand right from wrong and have a conscience to believing that dogs do things purposefully to spite us!
I will go so far as to say, as far as house training is concerned, dont EVEN shout at your dog if you catch him in the act. Instead, remove him sharply to outside, or if its too late, its too late, quietly clean up and berate yourself for not being faster off the mark that time.
The reason here is this. What YOU intend to convey is 'OI dont poo in here'...... however what the dog LEARNS is 'OI DONT POO IN FRONT OF ME'......
And so he starts to sneak off to poo, hide behind the sofa to poo, poo on the bed and bury it in the covers.
So then you go MENTAL when you find a poo in the bed (who wouldnt!), you show the dog, you shout at him. He after a few repetitions (which there will be as hes now sneaking off to poo elsewhere), now learns that when owners find poo, bad things happen.
So he starts to eat his poo!
Or, when you go out, and he needs sthe toilet and poos in the house, he learns to fear the owners return, and develops seperation anxiety - mental torment as hes anxious about being alone, and then anxious about the owners return.
Poor confused puppy.
So now theres a pup who'd rather eat his poo, or trash the house in fear of the owners return because hes pood somewhere...... and you want him to poo in the garden where you can see, so that you know hes gone.
But he wont, he knows if he poos in front of you, you shout at him. So he holds it in..... so hes worse when you go out..... eventually you get sick of him and send him to rescue.
That might seem like im over egging the cake a tad, but im not. That DOES happen, and it happens far far too frequently from the simple mistake in human interpretation of a dogs body language.
Tokis - missed your thing about conscience -
WE learn from an early age what is and isnt acceptable - but these things are frequently social rules that change depending on where you are. For example, in the UK belching is considered unpleasant and rude - ie wrong. In other countries this is not the case.
We are taught as humans for the most part that stealing is unacceptable, our sense of ownership and material possessions is HUGE - we earn money and collect possessions, even if we arent currently using those possessions for someone else to take them is wrong.
For a DOG though, possession really IS nine tenths of the law - if its in a dogs mouth, it belongs to that dog. If its in another room, its anyones, be it food, toys, whatever.
So when your dog sees your hairbrush on the sofa, well its not in your hand (or mouth), its not next to you, thus its free for anyones use.
As humans we learn that faeces and urine are dirty. These rules change as we age though - for an 18 month old child, messing in its nappy is not considered dirty, its considered normal. For an 18 YEAR old human, that would be considered dirty.
Dogs naturally have a VERY small area they would define as 'bed' or 'den' and endeavour to keep clean. This would probably correlate to a humans bed.
It does NOT correlate to the whole of a human beings HOUSE, that is far too wide a space to be considered a den, and thus the untrained dog would not consider it 'wrong' by his own social and instinctive rules to poo in this area.
When you teach a dog that toiletting in the house is wrong, you are trying to convey that the ENTIRE house is out of bounds. For you thats a simple concept 'all of the house'. For the DOG thats a very different matter.
Your perception of your house is probably this: Living room, kitchen, hall, bedroom, bathroom, cosy sofa, bed.
Your DOGS perception is more likely this: Spot thats warm by sofa where i can see the living room door, spot thats warm in hall where i can see the front door and the living room door, kitchen where food happens, back door where going out happens, spot in hall by cupboard where leads are, spot at top of stairs where its warm and i can see front door bedroom doors, bathroom where mum is all wet and i can dry her and big white refilling dog bowl, spot on floor by bedroom door where i can smell mum under the door, spot on bedroom floor where there is a nasty draught and its cold, spot by bed where its warm and no one will accidentally step on me in the night, cosy bed where i can snuggle up, ..... and even MORE defined....... spot in kitchen where mum spilt chip fat three years ago, spot 2" away where someone did a wee, spot over by cooker where someone dropped some sausages - spot on sofa where someone spilt tea - spot on cushion where someones wiped bolognese sauce, spot on landing where someone dropped dirty washing......
To attempt to teach a dog clearly that ALL THOSE PLACES and the ones inbetween are 'wrong' is a massive undertaking, and really quite pointless.
Far far better to teach the more simple, positive lesson - 'if you always pee on this grass here you will always get a reward'.
That is a lesson a dog CAN learn, he CAN learn that its 'right' to go here, but only because its a thing thats rewarded. NOT because its inherently 'right' - because to him with his social and instinctive rules, its fine to toilet anywhere but in his 2ft by 4ft bed!
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