Great Dane Just Can’t Conceal His Guilt When Owner Confronts Him

When some dogs cause mischief, they try to conceal it or act nonchalant to avoid getting caught. But that wasn’t the case for Rocket the Great Dane, who couldn’t hide his guilt for a single second.

When Chris Gordon arrived back home, he instantly saw that one of his three Great Danes had decided to rummage through the trash in search of some treasure. When he went to interrogate the suspects however, it immediately became clear who the guilty party was, as Rocket simply couldn’t conceal his cheeky grin.

This isn’t the first time Rocket has been caught. Gordon, from Aurora, Colorado, told Newsweek that the pup has “a dead giveaway” whenever he has been misbehaving. Rocket doesn’t have much of a poker face because he will usually start smiling and showing his teeth when he’s guilty.

Gordon filmed the moment he confronted his trio of Great Danes, named Groot, Gamora and Rocket, and shared the video on his TikTok account (@denvergameryt), much to the delight of his followers. Social media users can’t get enough of Rocket’s guilty expression, and the video has already racked up more than 3.1 million views and 235,500 likes in a matter of days.

“Rocket usually has a smile or this submissive grin when he gets into the trash. This time, he probably got the cat food, I couldn’t tell, but he was just acting very guilty,” Gordon added.

“Now, a lot of people will say dogs can’t feel guilt, but I definitely think he has some form of it. He’s the only one of my three blue Great Danes who smiles like that. It’s so obvious, he’s my trash panda.”

Many pet owners will be familiar with their cat or dog’s actions when they have been caught out; whether it’s the wide-eyed expression and refusing to make eye contact, or pretending to stay asleep so they can’t be told off. But researchers are still unsure as to whether dogs can genuinely feel guilt.

VCA Animal Hospitals experts say that, when dogs are retreating and keeping their head down, they are not indicating signs of remorse, but they are responding to their owner’s body language. They can tell that their owner isn’t best pleased with them, so they will often revert to a posture that indicates submission or appeasement, which we in turn read as guilt.

Fundamentally, over time, pets should learn what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t, purely through observation. If a dog does something good and gets rewarded, they will want to repeat the cycle again; likewise, they’ll notice when their bad behavior isn’t praised and learn from that. They might push the boundaries at first, but pets will gradually learn the household rules, and undesirable behavior should gradually be cut out.

For the most part, Gordon says that his three Great Danes are incredibly lazy and don’t have much energy to create trouble or run around. But, on the odd occasion when they’re feeling mischievous, it’s rarely hard to work out which one was at fault.

“Rocket is usually guilty, and Gamora can be just as bad too, but not Groot, he’s perfect,” Gordon said. “Groot is the father of Rocket and Gamora, they are related. So, Gamora will be bred and then we’ll have Drax next.”

We may not know whether Rocket truly felt bad about his actions, but nonetheless TikTok users loved his hilarious guilty expression. With more than 1,600 comments on the viral post, there was plenty of praise for his attempt to keep it cool.

One comment reads: “I love how dogs just tell on themselves lol.”

Another TikTok user wrote: “The guilty sneezes give it away EVERY time.”

A third posted: “He’s showing clean teefers to prove it wasn’t him this time!”

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