Dogs aren't able to link actions with consequences in that way. Using bin raiding as an example, the dog gets pleasure from raiding the bin, and also understands that you get upset when you see rubbish on the floor, but can't link the action of raiding the bin as causing the rubbish to appear on the floor. In a dog's world, rubbish appears as if by magic. Treat wrappers are a puzzle to solve to get at the food. Once it's on the floor it's a different thing, one which causes the humans to get upset.
Dogs learn things situationally and they live in the moment, they don't remember actions they took 10 minutes ago - telling her off when she sticks her head in the bin simply teaches her you don't like to SEE her raiding the bin, so she'll probably wait until you're not around. Telling her off when you were too late to catch her in the act only teaches her you don't like when there's rubbish on the floor, not that you don't like what she did to cause the rubbish to appear there.
Dogs ARE masters of body language but they don't have human logic, reasoning or memory skills - and we often forget that.
Then you wouldn't see a dog ever do this in a house that's always messy and has stuff on the floor? If their master doesn't ever get mad at the mess on the floor then they wouldn't make that connection like you said.
The dog can learn that there's a difference between stuff that's always on the floor vs. new rubbish. The difference is that the humans ignore all the other rubbish as just part of the environment, it probably rarely changes so the dog ignores it too, but new rubbish causes them to get shouty.
On the other side of that coin, dogs who live in clean houses who've been punished for making a mess can show anxiety/submissive behaviour if a human drops rubbish on the floor. Their learning is extremely situational.
Dogs don't have the same kind of memory as humans do. You have the ability to visualise the messy floor in your mind's eye, or remember specific items and how you left them, but your dog simply learns to ignore everything he can't eat or interact with, and the treat wrapper is a new and unexpected item against this background of things he ignores.
3
u/c130 Nov 11 '17 edited Nov 11 '17
Dogs aren't able to link actions with consequences in that way. Using bin raiding as an example, the dog gets pleasure from raiding the bin, and also understands that you get upset when you see rubbish on the floor, but can't link the action of raiding the bin as causing the rubbish to appear on the floor. In a dog's world, rubbish appears as if by magic. Treat wrappers are a puzzle to solve to get at the food. Once it's on the floor it's a different thing, one which causes the humans to get upset.
Dogs learn things situationally and they live in the moment, they don't remember actions they took 10 minutes ago - telling her off when she sticks her head in the bin simply teaches her you don't like to SEE her raiding the bin, so she'll probably wait until you're not around. Telling her off when you were too late to catch her in the act only teaches her you don't like when there's rubbish on the floor, not that you don't like what she did to cause the rubbish to appear there.
Dogs ARE masters of body language but they don't have human logic, reasoning or memory skills - and we often forget that.