The 'Guilty Dog' Challenge Got People Competing About Whose Dog Is The Naughtiest (30 Pics)

To find out more about the guilty dog look, Bored Panda talked to Kate Mornement, an animal behaviorist and consultant who runs Pets Behaving Badly solutions. Kate explained that the guilty look is body language and behavior displayed by dogs which seems to coincide with naughty behavior.“

The guilty look often involves dogs showing the whites of their eyes, lip licking, avoiding eye contact, tucking their tail, holding their ears back flat against their head, cowering, and sometimes hiding from the owner.” Moreover, there are both universal signs of guilt that seems to be present in many dogs, and less frequently displayed behaviors, like exposing their teeth or closing their eyes (remember Denver the Labrador?).

Kate explained that while “guilt is a human concept, dogs are known to share other emotions in common with us, such as fear, anxiety, joy, and anticipation.” Perhaps, Kate said, “guilt will be added to this list; however, we'll have to wait for the science to prove it one way or another.” As for now, "researchers are trying to establish whether dogs actually feel guilty when caught out or whether they're just responding to our behavior and body language and being scolded."

It’s not the first time that we've seen challenges from the Dogspotting Society Facebook group going viral on social media. In a previous interview with Bored Panda, a representative of the Dogspotting Headquarters team explained that these challenges are usually started by community members.

“Most of them based on universal experiences, so many people can interact with one another. Some of the other challenges we’ve seen are #ThenAndNow challenge, #WhatWasYourDogMistakenFor challenge,#SmilingDog challenge, and #UnflatteringDogPhoto challenge, just to name a few!" Check our article on the "Didn’t Want A Dog" challenge right here.

A spokesperson of the Dogspotting Society also said that now that the world is in quarantine, it’s the perfect time to adopt a dog. “With so many people working from home, you’ll have more time to bond with your new best friend! We know this year has been very difficult for a lot of our members and the challenges have added a bit of levity for everyone."

The Dogspotting community is a truly unique and large social media platform that involves a variety of different channels, like the Dogspotting Society public group, their sister site, Dogspotting, the Dogspotting Headquarters page, Dogspotting Media, and even a court page.

Everyone strictly follows their rules there to ensure efficient and interesting content. After all, the Dogspotting Society Facebook group, which is public, has a whopping 1M+ members that make about 10k posts a month.