[natesmom14]

"My dog knows he's in trouble for pooping in the hallway!"...
errrrrrrrrr... no! The dog sees a subtle change in master's demeanor, and knows the roof is about to fall on him, as he's been punished before when he has seen this change, so he cowers... soliciting for master to take it easy on him.

I copied this text from the behavior sticky thread- I am not trying to single this one out as I HAVE heard this said many times- from trainers, on the forums, etc., just trying to show an example of what I was referring to...

I have a recent example of how this is just NOT true, that she DOES know when she does something wrong and am wondering if I am alone in my thinking of this?

I came home the other day from running an errand, I walked up the front stairs and looked in the little side window as I usually do as I start to unlock the front door. Rather than standing at the top of the stairs w/ tail wagging as she normally does to greet us, Nikki was slinking around with her belly nearly to the floor. At this point it was completely impossible for her to see any remote change in my demeanor as a) I am still outside- the door hasn't even been opened and, so, b)I had no idea that she did anything "wrong" whatsoever at this point. It turned out she had pooped on the floor down by the laundry room.

Lest you think she's expecting a beating for it and that's why she's having such a strong reaction without our presence, that is simply not true- we only reprimand if she is caught in the act (which she occasionally has been when chewing a toy- and then we simply say a firm "no" and take it from her) but as she has only pooped in the house when we are gone, we don't reprimand well after the fact, we simply clean it up. We also try to make sure we don't set her up to "fail"- ie: kids are warned that all toys must be picked up before we leave or it is at their own risk that they might lose something and we try to take her out and make sure she goes before we leave the house (but I guess sometimes her breakfast hasn't "hit bottom" yet before we have to leave the house and that's what causes her to go when we are gone...).

Lastly she is overall a very calm and well-behaved dog so incidents like these rarely happen anymore now that she's a bit older (4 years) anyway- but something caused her to realize that what she did in the house is something that we wouldn't be happy about...any thoughts?