WHAT DO ANIMALS KNOW? 
The stories, which seem to be well authenticated, 
of sheep-killing dogs that have slipped their collars 
in the night and indulged their passion for live mut- 
ton, and then returned and thrust their necks into 
their collars before their absence was discovered, do 
not, to my mind, prove that the dogs were trying to 
deceive their masters and conceal their guilt, but 
rather show how obedient to the chain and collar 
the dogs had become. They had long been subject 
to such control and discipline, and they returned to 
them again from the mere force of habit. 
I do not believe even the dog to be capable of a 
sense of guilt. Such a sense implies a sense of duty, 
and this is a complex ethical sense that the animals 
do not experience. What the dog fears, and what 
makes him put on his look of guilt and shame, is his 
master’s anger. A harsh word or a severe look will 
make him assume the air of a culprit whether he is 
one or not, and, on the other hand, a kind word and 
a reassuring smile will transform him into a happy 
beast, no matter if the blood of his victim is fresh 
upon him. 
A dog is to be broken of a bad habit, if at all, not 
by an appeal to his conscience or to his sense of 
duty, for he has neither, but by an appeal to his 
susceptibility to pain. 
Both Pliny and Plutarch tell the story of an ele- 
phant which, having been beaten by its trainer for 
its poor dancing, was afterward found all by itself 
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