Do Dogs Hold Grudges? How To Tell if Your Pet Is Angry With You

Does your dog appear to be avoiding you? Paranoid that you may have done something to upset your pup?

Pet behavior expert and celebrity dog trainer Travis Brorsen told Newsweek: “People may wonder if their dog is angry at them and holding a grudge. But that’s not how dogs’ minds and emotions work. The truth is, dogs aren’t humans.”

That’s not to say pups don’t have feelings. Our canine friends can feel upset as they are highly perceptive beings, capable of sensing emotions and reading the facial expressions of humans.

Dogs are even capable of distinguishing “intentional actions from unintentional behavior,” according to a September 2021 study published in the peer-reviewed Scientific Reports.

But can dogs form grudges? Newsweek spoke to pet behavior experts who explained how dogs might display and cope with their upset.

Can Dogs Hold Grudges?

Professional dog trainer and behaviorist Sally Grottini told Newsweek: “Dogs do not hold grudges because they don’t understand what a grudge is. Humans, however, put what the human brain thinks [a grudge is] and attribute that to their dog’s behavior.”

What humans might perceive to be a grudge is actually just a negative association that the dog has made with them. The dog behaviorist explained that as dogs develop and live with humans, “they associate the human’s behavior and reaction to things that the dog has done in the past or present.”

She said if an owner has shown a harsh reaction, either through their body language (such as by pulling or hitting) or in the tone of voice, “the dog only associates what is happening at that time in which the owner reacts like this.”

During this time, the dog will often “take in the area, the person, the time of day, the smells and the human’s negative reaction” and “associate the whole scene negatively until the owner shows a change in their ways over time,” Grottini noted.

Brorsen, who is the host of My Big Fat Pet Makeover on the Animal Planet television channel and an expert judge on the Discovery Plus series The Dog Games, said: “Dogs have feelings, sure,” noting that canines can associate a positive or negative feeling with a person, place or word and “remember it for a very long time.”

However, “dogs aren’t people,” he said, adding that they “mostly live in the moment.”

Brorsen explained: “Even if you come home and your dog has chewed up your shoe. Your dog isn’t thinking, ‘My human didn’t take me to the dog park this morning. I’ll destroy their favorite shoe.’ It’s more like, ‘I’m bored. I’m going to chew on this shoe.'”

How To Tell When Your Dog Is Angry With You

While dogs might not understand what a grudge means, they may display certain behaviors that may seem like they’re resulting from anger.

None of the below are “grudges,” Grottini said. “They are simply instincts to protect themselves or actions to satisfy themselves, that the human does not always understand.”

Your Dog Is Avoiding You

Grottini said a good example of this would be when you yell your dog’s name out in frustration to call them over when they’re not on a leash, even though you haven’t taught the dog how to come to you.

“This makes the dog afraid to come to you. So, if it ever gets loose again, it is going to associate that past action and likely will not come to you in the future,” she said.

Another example would be if you scolded your pup while out on a walk. “The dog may not, in the future, want to walk with you again, but may happily go with another family member,” Grottini noted.

Displaying Fear Imprints

Grottini said another behavior that may “seem like a grudge” is fear. A dog that feels fear from a certain environment/area will no longer want to be in that space. “This can happen even when a dog has always been in that environment before. Much depends on the dog’s temperament,” she said.

The pet behaviorist noted that all dogs go through “fear imprints” from birth to age four or five and they can last up to three weeks. If the owner does not acknowledge these for what they are and attempts to force their pet to enter the space that it fears, “they will lose the dog’s trust and the dog may never again go into that area.”

‘Not Listening’

Grottini explained: “This is not holding a grudge, it is simply saying that if their action worked for them before, they would do it again.”

For example, if you’re on a walk with your dog and you want to walk in a certain direction, but your pet is more interested in the opposite way, so your pooch just stops walking. Typically in this scenario, after some tugging or coaxing of the dog, the owner finally gives up and begins to walk the dog in the direction the pet wants to go.

“Because this worked for the dog once, the dog will likely try it again in the future. Keep in mind that a dog will always do what works for them and may reject what an owner wants from them due to prior actions of the owner,” Grottini said.

Examining Yourself

If you’re wondering whether your dog is holding a grudge, Brorsen advises doing a self-assessment, asking yourself: “How am I feeling right now?”

The pet behavior expert said owners should consider what message they’re sending with their body language and tone of voice because that’s what your dog is responding to. “Whatever you are doing right now, that’s what your dog is reacting to, not something that happened two hours ago or last month,” he said.

Brorsen explained: “Dogs learn to express a certain body posture in response to your energy and even to a certain look on your face. If you get mad at your dog because he ate your shoe, your dog will see and hear your emotions. He may look sad and cower. We might assume it’s guilt because that’s what we might relate to. But that’s us projecting our human emotions onto them.”

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