Dogs knowing they’ve messed up and acting guilty can be so funny. And it can be so accurate to how they’re actually feeling. For those reasons, we love a recently published TikTok video from TikToker @bolt.the.shepsky. The video’s caption reads, “I knew he was acting suspicious,” and features a German shepherd-husky mix looking very guilty.
The 20-second clip starts with the caption, “Bolt greeting us except he’s guilty about something.” The video shows Bolt coming up to the person holding the camera, then getting back on his hind legs for the jump hug. Then Bolt immediately does that hilarious thing guilty dogs do, where he walks away, looking like he’s trying to get super small, and lies down on the ground like he’s trying to disappear.
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“I Knew He Was Acting Suspicious”
Next, Bolt runs and gets on a couch in a bedroom, again, looking guilty. But also, he’s wagging his tail, because he’s a dog and loves his humans so much that he can’t help but be excited when they’re around, even if he knows he did something he wasn’t supposed to. “What is this?” Bolt’s human mother asks, pointing to a towel spread across the floor. Bolt responds by doing that hilarious guilty thing dogs do, where he refuses to actually look at what he did, even though his human mother is pointing at it and asking him what it is.
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“Did you take that from the bathroom?” Bolt’s human mother asks. Meanwhile, Bolt keeps his head down in shame while refusing to look directly at his mother.
While dogs definitely show behaviors that look like guilt, most researchers conclude that they don’t actually feel complex human emotions like guilt, which require a more advanced sense of self that most animals lack. When dogs show behaviors that we interpret as guilt—avoiding eye contact, lowered head, tail tucked between their legs—it’s more likely that they are sensing you’re upset. That said, as some commenters on this TikTok video pointed out, it sure does look like Bolt senses guilt even before his parents show any sign of being upset, or even before they knew he’d taken a towel out of the bathroom and left it on the floor.
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This story was originally published by PetHelpful on Dec 12, 2025, where it first appeared in the Pet News section. Add PetHelpful as a Preferred Source by clicking here.