Dog owners have been left heartbroken after discovering their common habits could be hurting their pet’s feelings, and they have seen been apologising to their pets
Dog owners have been apologising to their pets after learning one of their common habit could be hurting their feelings. In a viral TikTok video, user Digit & Pip shared six human behaviours that could be hurting your dog’s feelings, leaving them feeling unwanted or unloved.
Heartbreakingly, a lot of owners admitted to carrying these out, and have since been showing their pet’s with affection to apologise to them. Starting with a little-known one, the video says: “Pushing your dog away whilst they’re giving kisses – they’re showing affection. Pushing them away could make them think you’re rejecting them.”
While everyone gets frustrated with their dog from time to time, they know raising their voice to them isn’t going to solve anything, but many do it anyway.
Another point adds: “Being angry at them – they don’t understand this emotion so it just teaches them to be afraid of you.”
Similarly, using the ‘come’ command to get the to do something they don’t like will only make them associate it with a “punishment command”.
Sharing the other three points, the video adds: “Taking their food/treats away whilst they’re eating just to show you can, it could teach them to become more possessive and afraid they’ll lose their food source.
“Repeatedly teasing them like blowing in their faces, poking them randomly – your dog can get confused as they don’t understand and this can cause anxiety or stress.
“Ignoring their fears – dogs can be afraid of irrational things but ignoring their fears and forcing them to go head first into a situation can cause them anxiety and they’ll start to think it’s a punishment.”
Commenting on the video, one user said: “Noooo, I blow in my dog’s face to play.” Another user added: “Brb, apologising to my dog.”
A third user said: “What kind of monster rejects puppy kisses?” One more user added: “I can’t not reject the licking behaviour sometimes. If redirection doesn’t work I have to push him away.”
While a final person said: “My puppy was afraid of the stairs, never went up or down. One day I put her at the top and laid in the living room and waited for her to come. She did.”
According to Dr. Erin Hecht and her team on The Canine Brains Project at Harvard University, dogs do feel emotions – but not in the same way as humans.
A statement on Rover reads: “Assigning human words and root causes to these emotions isn’t always the best way to describe them.
“‘On one hand, it can be helpful to use words like ‘jealousy’ for conceptualising and relating to dogs’ feelings,’ says Dr. Julia Espinosa, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow who studies how genes, the brain, and life experiences influence fear and reactivity in dogs.
“But anthropomorphising – assigning human feelings to animals – carries the risk of missing signals that more accurately explain your dog’s feelings and needs.
“A better approach involves considering your dog’s feelings on a scale of very negative to very positive.”
