My dog knows he has been bad when I have left him, when I come in he looks guilty and hides under the chair. How do I stop him?

Firstly, yes your dog knows you’re cross because every time you come back from being out you tell him off. You whole body language screams out to him I am cross with you. However, he won’t necessarily understand why you are cross. Dogs can’t learn to understand things just because you show them what it is. If this were the case you could show dogs how to make the tea and pick the kids up from school. I haven’t seen many dogs do this so it proves to me that you can not show dogs how to do things in this way. After all when you left the dog has performed many things, walked about a bit, scratched at the door, had a sniff, had a whine, paced up and down, scrabbled at the carpet trying to get out to find you or to escape from the feeling of isolation amongst a whole heap of other behaviours. How on earth is your dog going to understand that you are cross about the bit somewhere in the middle where it scrabbled at the carpet? It can’t! Therefore, you have to find out the underlying reason for why it can’t cope with you leaving by consulting a properly trained companion animal behaviourist in your area. Your vet may be able to recommend one or you could visit the APBC website www.apbc.org by clicking on the APBC or ASAB logos.