My sister's dog is named Toby. He is a Labradoodle... or whatever they call it. A Labrador poodle mix.

A very friendly dog and we were getting along very well over the holidays. He is well behaved, doesn't bark, is mild mannered and just an all around nice dog. His "parents" were out with their kids when I dropped by my parents house for some turkey leftovers. Toby was very sad because his family was gone and when I got there he wanted to play. He was jumping around and acting up so I took him outside to let him run off some his pent up energy.

Things were going well... he ran around like a crazy nut dog and eventually "did his business"... in the neighbors yard (not my dog. I'm not picking it up). It was dark and kind of wet and raining just a bit so I called him to come back inside.

Now this is where things went south. Toby is... to put it mildly... a bit of a klutz. He is fairly young but still in general he is clumsy. My parents driveway is short but very steep, at least a 30 degree incline. I sort of started running down the driveway and Toby cut me off. At that speed and angle there wasn't much I could do. He took me out at the feet I went down like a sack of Christmas yams. I was able to turn and roll a bit before hitting the hard cement but I still slid several feet when I rolled onto my back. I hit my left knee and elbow and left hip. Luckily I was wearing my leather jacket which took the brunt of the abrasive impact.

I laid on my back, spread eagle and groaning for a bit. I eventually struggled to my feet and hobbled to the front door and realized Toby was nowhere to be seen. I looked up and there he was cowering at the top of the driveway under a tree with the most sad and pathetic "hang dog" expression on his face. I called him down and we went inside and I cleaned up and bandaged my wounds. I will be feeling it tomorrow I am sure.

Now here is the part that really broke my heart. Toby was acting pathetic. He wouldn't come near me. He really looked... sad. He looked pathetic. He hid behind a chair shaking and would not come out. I tempted him with TURKEY! Real turkey! He wouldn't budge. It was pathetic because it seemed like he wanted to come to me (he liked me yesterday) but at the same time he acted... terrified and backed away in fear when I approached.. or he would come towards me and then quickly run behind the chair like not being able to make up his mind to hide or get the turkey in my hands. When we first came in after it happened I patted him and hugged him and tried to reassure him so he didn't think my cries and groans of pain had been directed towards him. But even when I left hours later he was still very afraid to approach me.

Does he feel guilt? Or is he thinking the "Mean man will fall on me in the driveway again."? I may have kicked him unintentionally when I tripped. It did remind me of the reaction a small child will have when they accidentally hurt someone and don't know what to do with all the guilt and start to cry.

Do dogs feel guilt when they do things like that? He knocks over my nephews by accident all the time and never gives it a second thought. My neighbor's dog keeps me up barking all night and when I yell at him he just wags his tail and tries to lick my hand.

-vern

Great!
Another dog named "Toby" story.
Does every other dog owner have to name their dog "Toby"?!?
I think I am the only human named Toby and I swear people are just starting to whistle or clap at me to get my attention...

Just give "Toby" some time. He'll forgive you as you do him.

I have a Lab (named Ben) who remembers incidents and reacts accordingly too. Not uncommon I would have thought. But some dogs seem to be "more human" than others. I could swear ours gets "stage fright" if you watch him doing his business......and he even cowers behind things when a particularly loud memeber of the family visits.
I'm sure yours will get over it eventually.

Sorry to hear about your pain, Vern. I hope you get better soon.

I don't believe animals feel guilt. Guilt is a man's burden ever since he accepted/chose free will. That is our price, not the animals'. The poor dog is just being cautious. Doesn't want to be near those "klutzy" humans

guilt is rooted in empathy and fear of reprisal from the community, so any empathic communal creature can feel guilt.

...either that, or he doesn't want to get run over again. ' ' )

-jon

i never asked for free will... i took it.

Dogs are born guilty! They take everything to heart, but usually they are fast at forgiving if you harm them. But if they harm you, well that takes time. I think Dogs are way smarter than what people give them credit for.

Cats don't have guilt!

My sister says that Dogs are men and Cats are women. Hence the word feline=female.

I think Labrador are the best dog for being well temper, and as a kid you can do everything to the dog and it tolerate much of it. I tried riding my Labrador like horses when I was little. It tolerated that, amazingly?

We had a poodle chihuahua mix, and it didn't turn out good at all. It was essentially a walking brillo pad, that had a built in alarm system. I really wish I had a tribble instead.

If cats could talk ...they would lie.

(& I'm an indentured cat slave)

I'm a cat person myself although I don't have one. Dogs are too slobbery for my tastes.

When I was little my parents bought a pure bred Siamese cat. We had it for about 5 minutes. Took it back. It was the most miserable mean horrible beast to ever walk the earth. The horrific noises it made would shatter glass. Inbreeding I guess.

I also had a gerbil as a pet for... about 5 minutes. We left it in the card board carrier from the pet shop while we set up its cage. In that short time it chewed out of the box, and escaped into the basement. My parents have LOTS of STUFF in the basement. I mean all kinds of nooks an crannies everywhere. That gerbil became feral and lived down their for ages. I would leave little piles of gerbil food for it (we bought the stuff, we bought the gerbil might as well use it right?).

Eventually my dad said we had to catch it. He had one of those "have-a-heart" traps that doesn't harm the beasts it catches.

When we captured the wild thing for some reason it was decided to TAKE IT BACK TO THE PET SHOP. At the time this made sense to me, I was only a child. In hind sight now this was a big mistake. That gerbil had turned into "Tarzan Gerbil". He was craaaaazy. I didn't go to the pet shop to return it but my brother did and told me afterwards that they stuck it in the cage with the other "tame" gerbils and as they were leaving he could see the cage rattling and shaking and hear terrible squealing and awful noises.

I like to think that gerbil escaped again and lived out his short life running around the Woolworth's department store hiding during the day and foraging at night.

-vern

I agree. It may be cute, but it's not always a good thing to assign human emotions to animals. For example, if you put a dog into a hot room, it will "smile" (pant).

I would say that the dog was simply startled. He is probably used to people who know that he runs in front of them. Each of you surprised the other. That which appears to be guilt is probably the canine equivalent of "What was THAT?!"

One time we left 2 pound of burger to thaw out and my Siamese cat ate the whole thing, and survive. I thought for sure she wouldn't live, but right after she ate it she did not move from the kitchen counter, but just stayed until ............ well you know. I am so glad she lived, as she was really wonderful. I have heard that Siamese cat can be pretty mean, but I loved it with all of my heart from kitten stage, and she never did become mean. I am convince that Siamese cat are the smartest of all cats, and that you have to talk to them all the time, because they understand everything. It is my experience that Siamese cat just need more attention then other cat and if they get them, they wont become mean.

That's a hell of a Gerbal story!

anyone seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSCVrb9pxA4

I think I post it before?

I've had several dogs when I was young. Dogs learn their behavior. If the dog fears you after triping you then he is conditioned to fear someone he tripped. My guess is that he's probably been beaten for tripping someone in the past. And probably more than once. The scene of tripping you just trigered the conditioning and he is expecting to be beaten now. He will forget though.

Dhar said..."I don't believe animals feel guilt. Guilt is a man's burden ever since he accepted/chose free will. "

Jon said..."guilt is rooted in empathy and fear of reprisal from the community, so any empathic communal creature can feel guilt."

In this case, Jon has it. Animal studies over the last many years show that animals (including the human animal) do have emotional responses. Not all animals have the same responses, and conditioning can screw that up (just ask any sociopath). But I also agree with ypoissant, that this dog may be responding to a learned condition. Our dog (chihuahua) is a rescue dog. She was left on the streets to fend for herself, and we found her. She had a near total aversion to men, and other problems that made it clear she was abused. She was only about a year old when we found her, and now is much happier and less fear ridden, though some of that remains.

Vern, I really think you need to take some of your stories and consider doing animated shorts about them. Your gerbil story had me laughing out loud, and my wife too, as I read it for her. I can see the closing shot of the gerbil story, as your brother leaves the store looking over his shoulder, eyes wide, and the cage rattles and shakes to the sounds of terrified gerbils. Glad to hear that you survived.

Phil...

Another dog behavior story...

When I was younger we would visit family friends who never had any children but they LOVED their cocker spaniels. They always had two, a young one and an old one. I always got along very well with the dogs and never treated them badly.

On one visit the younger dog was absolutely TERRIFIED of me. I couldn't go near it! It hid under the kitchen table shivering any time I got near it. I remember feeling sad because there was no reason for it. I learned later that they had some guests for a few days and one of the children who looked like me and was about my same size and age and had been cruel to the poor dog. Apparently he associated that person with me and just couldn't get over it.

This surprised me because I thought dogs go by smell as much or more than sight to recognize other animals or people. Maybe all humans just smell the same to them. It could be he was still so young he hadn't learn to make those distinctions.

As far as learned behavior from my tripping incident... I don't think Toby was ever punished for that type of thing. My sister and her family had gone for a walk in the woods behind my parents house and my brother in law told me later that Toby totally took out my six year old nephew. He was laughing about it because the dog just ran into him from behind with out realizing and took him out at the knees knocking him completely backwards onto his back. The kids are use to this and just get back up and keep going. No guilt then from the dog. Maybe he was concerned about hurting my nephews FAVORITE UNCLE. I am their favorite uncle by far.

p.s. Last christmas I taught my young nephew how to do stop motion with a digital camera and some toys on the floor. We did a bunch of stuff and I burned it to DVD for them to take home. My sister was surprised when recently at home he set up toys on the floor and did stop motion with the digital camera they gave him. He made a toy car move across the floor. Apparently he remembered how this worked and was able to repeat it. Instead of converting to video he just "scanned' Through the pictures on the camera display very quickly to make the images appear to move. This kid is dang smart. Kids never forget ANYTHING... which means I have to repeat a lot of these activities every year... <sigh>. The worst part is this small child has a digital camera with 5 megapixels and all I have is 3.5. Maybe he will trade. He's a small child! What does he know? I think his computer is better than mine as well. Kids get all the best toys.

-vern