So, for example, your dog may know that you’re about to come home because your personal scent always fades to the same point by that time every day. A couple tested this theory in the video below, successfully tricking their dog into losing track of time.
While it may come as no surprise to dog owners, research has confirmed that dogs get more excited about reuniting with their owners when they’ve been apart for longer.3 Dogs who had been separated from their owners for 2 hours were much more excited about reuniting than dogs who had only been separated for 30 minutes.
3 – Therese Rehn, Linda J. Keeling The effect of time left alone at home on dog welfare Applied Animal Behaviour Science
Many dog owners say that it seems like their dogs “just know” when family members usually come home, or even when other routine events are about to take place (such as going out for a walk). Yet, if dogs can’t read clocks or count hours, how is this possible? With some creative thinking, scientists are beginnning to answer the question “Can dogs tell time?“.
4 – Lisa M. Saksida, Donald Wilkie Time-of-day discrimination by pigeons, Columba livia Animal Learning & Behavior
How do dogs tell time?
Johnson breaks down how your dog’s sense of smell, circadian rhythm and brain help him tell time.
Smell
Johnson explains that dogs use odors to tell time, referencing the book “Being A Dog: Following The Dog Into A World Of Smell” by cognitive scientist and canine researcher Alexandra Harowitz.
“Horowitz believes that a dogs day is marked by tenuous shifts of smell in their environments,” Johnson said. “Dogs ‘tell time’ with their noses by determining new or recent smells and differentiating them between older smells that were laid much earlier in the day or even week.”
For example, your dog can even determine how long you’ve been gone through his sense of smell.
“When you leave the house in the morning, your smell is at its strongest, [and] while youre gone your smell slowly dissipates through the day,” Johnson said. “Your dog can learn to use this as a timer for how long youre gone during the day, and even when to expect you home in the evening.”
If you want to learn more about how this works, you can give Harowitz’s book a read.
Can dogs tell the time? | Inside the Animal Mind – BBC
If you’re a dog owner, you may be all too familiar with the panic that ensues when it’s time for you to head out and leave your pooch at home. Sometimes it can seem as if your dog thinks you may never come back. After all, the long hours spent home alone may feel like an eternity to him since he doesn’t have a way to tell the time. Or does he?
Many dog owners say that it seems like their dogs “just know” when family members usually come home, or even when other routine events are about to take place (such as going out for a walk). Yet, if dogs can’t read clocks or count hours, how is this possible? With some creative thinking, scientists are beginnning to answer the question “Can dogs tell time?“.
One theory is that dogs “tell time” by using their sense of smell. They keep track of how much particular scents fade, and remember that specific things happen when a scent reaches a certain level of faintness.
So, for example, your dog may know that you’re about to come home because your personal scent always fades to the same point by that time every day. A couple tested this theory in the video below, successfully tricking their dog into losing track of time.
Another theory is that dogs use something called “circadian oscillators” to tell time. This means that they rely on the way their bodies feel at certain times, influenced by hormone levels and other physiological changes. This way of telling time has been observed in pigeons.2
While it may come as no surprise to dog owners, research has confirmed that dogs get more excited about reuniting with their owners when they’ve been apart for longer.3 Dogs who had been separated from their owners for 2 hours were much more excited about reuniting than dogs who had only been separated for 30 minutes.
What’s interesting is that dogs seem to be able to tell the difference between 30 minutes and 2 hours, but there’s no indication they notice a difference between 2 and 4 hours.
Much research still needs to be done on the subject of canine time-telling. Given how surprising the current findings are, it’s clear that there’s fertile ground for even more fascinating discoveries regarding this complex ability.
3 – Therese Rehn, Linda J. Keeling The effect of time left alone at home on dog welfare Applied Animal Behaviour Science
4 – Lisa M. Saksida, Donald Wilkie Time-of-day discrimination by pigeons, Columba livia Animal Learning & Behavior