BrainStuff Classics: Do Dogs Get Embarrassed When We Put Them in Costumes?

like dressing them up for warmth or fun. Halloween costumes, holiday outfits, birthday dresses, boots, scarves, wigs, painted nails, more boots. Some of these outfits are decidedly sillier than anything their owners would wear, which leads us to the question of the day. Do dogs get embarrassed when we dress them up? In humans, embarrassment is an emotion, just like love, guilt, sadness, fear, or happiness. When someone we know dies, we feel sorrow.

When people make fun of us, we feel humiliated or embarrassed. When something good happens, we feel happiness. Humans have six basic emotions love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, and fear. Some researchers argue that we display only four basics, happy, sad, a combo of afraid and surprised, and a combo of angry and disgusted, but that's a topic for another day. Whichever set you go by, these primary emotions then branch out to secondary emotions such as pride, relief, and optimism.

Tertiary emotions include excitement, loneliness, and embarrassment. Yet emotions are fleeting, They last for only a brief time. We don't stay embarrassed forever, or at the very least, we shouldn't. In humans, Embarrassment is a so called self conscious emotion, just like guilt. We get embarrassed when we trip or fall, when we burp at the dinner table, or spill a cup of coffee on a nice white shirt as a crowd of people look on. But do dogs feel the same emotions

that we do. It's a good question, and one that scientists have been welling over for you years. If you're a dog owner, there's no question that dogs become emotional. They wag their tail when they're happy, they look guilty, ears back head down when they pee on the rug or chew a book to shreds. We also know that they can get jealous of a new addition to the house, like a baby or another dog, or of the cat

who claims their favorite person's lap. Still, many scientists have yet to come to grips with the idea that dogs experience emotions like humans. While some argue that dogs do feel a range of emotions, guilt may not be one of them. Instead, dogs may simply be reacting to their owner's body language. In the opinion of some, dogs experience only instant reaction emotions fear, joy sadness, and anger, which

brings us back to whether dogs get embarrassed. Their scale is certainly different if they do, given that they don't have our hang ups and thus aren't embarrassed by things that would mortify most humans, like getting caught scratching or licking decidedly in delicate itches in public. We spoke via email with doctor Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist who has written

extensively on the psychology of dogs and cats. She said, as far as I know, there's been no systematic research into whether or not dogs feel embarrassment, but I would guess that they do. That said, when we dress them up as lobsters or Donald Trump for Halloween and they put their ears back and tuck their tails down, it may not be embarrassment that they're feeling. They might simply find the costumes uncomfortable or unfamiliar, and they might be upset by or reacting to the fact that all the

people around them are laughing and acting excited. If she had to bet on it, Pierce thinks dogs probably experienced the same basic emotions as humans. She said, dogs most certainly experience what are called the primary emotions, such as anger, fear, sadness, and joy. They also likely experience a whole range of secondary emotions, including empathy, guilt, and embarrassment. As for which emotions dogs lack, I wouldn't feel confident putting anything on

that list. My guess is that the more closely scientists study the emotional experiences and capacities of dogs, the more they will find. So should you dress your dog up to put up Bluntly, if you would feel humiliated dressed up as a lobster or Donald Trump, then chances are your dog will too, Pierce said, when people ask me whether it's mean to dress our dogs up in costumes or fancy sweaters, my answer is ask your dog. If

your dog seems uncomfortable, then take the costume off. After quickly taking that cute photograph to posts on social media. If your dog doesn't seem to care, or perhaps even seems to like being fancied up, then it's fine. Today's episode is based on the article do dogs get embarrassed When We Dress them up? On how stuffworks dot Com? Written by John Partano. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com, and it's produced

by Tyler Klang. But for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H