How Can My Dogs Tell The Time

[ThaiLife]

Ive not done any research on this , but just wanted to get some general thought's here. When I go out and leave my Two dogs alone , if I return after a short period of time say an Hour, they all way's seem happy to see me return , If I go out and don't return for most of the day , when I get back they all way's go more crazy and seem even more happy that ive come home.

How do my dogs know if ive only been away for an Hour , or if Ive been away for Five Hours ( Day Light Hours )

as I can see a definite difference in their reaction to me returning after different periods away from home

( When I am away from the house the Two dog's are alone , no one else in the house )

What Do You Think

Edited August 10, 2009 by ThaiLife

[jerrylee]

Internal biological clock

[bina]

dogs dont have a sense of time on a clock like we do; for them two minutes is the same as two hours.... u are just misreading their reaction. but if when u get home after a day of work and u usually take them straight out for their walk, they will automatically respond in a happier way then if u show up after two hours and they were sleeping (and most dogs sleep when their owners are out of the house, and wake up to play and socialize when their 'packmembers i.e. family show up in evening). there are tons of cues that u give to your dogs: when i pick up the garbage bag, they automatically works themselves to a frenzy of going out since i always take them with me to throw the garbage. if i pick up keys, they dont bother to get up off the sofa as they know that i am going in a car, and they are not invited. if they see the laundry bag (kibbutz does laundry in a different building) they always go with; if they see my kids pick up back packs, they know they arent going anywhere so again, dont bother to respond.

they do have a sense of time passing, and they can be regulated ; try feeding your dog an hour earlier then usual and then feed at the usual time. he will show up at the usual time since he has been conditioned to show up at the usual time, even if he isnt hungry.

dogs do develop separation anxiety as a mental illness which actually can be treated, but this doesnt have to do with time, but with the actual separation itself, and since dogs dont have a sense of time passing, they react with separation anxiety as if u are going away for a year even if its for a minute, unless u 'undo' the cues that make the dog react with anxiety (no petting and smooching before going out the door, etc)

the only animal that tells time is humans and it is an artificial, learned, response.

bina

israel

[SMEEERE]

Are they watch dogs ?

[bina]

actually they do respond to unknown footsteps or sounds coming up to the house... my boxers were harder to sneak up on, although also they could hear the difference in ways of walking up our stairs to the house... people are visitors or thinking of sneaking in walk in a different manner then someone who is master of the house. to show the difference:

at night, most outdoor dogs are more awake and alert and responsive since dogs are slightly more nocturnal, but most being indoor dogs, they go in to their owner's routine. thats why we always told people to play with a puppy until about 20:00 to tire them out so they will sleep til morning, other wise u have a puppy chasing balls and running around the house in the middle of the night.

we always said that no dogs barking outside is a bad sign meaning someone has poisoned them. if we were camping then they woud patrol all night and sleep in the day.

but house dogs sleep most of the day, waking up for when owners arrive to feed, play and socialize with them. only high energy dogs or dogs with severe mental problems/boredom will destroy houses or carry out other activities if left alone. also, i ahve three, which means they ahve become a pack; much less nice to come to my house now without prior warning, as if the gate is closed on the top of the stairs and the dogs hear it opening they go beserk. i know how to open it quietyl y so can sneak up on them!!

bina

[Bakeman]

Ive not done any research on this , but just wanted to get some general thought's here. When I go out and leave my Two dogs alone , if I return after a short period of time say an Hour, they all way's seem happy to see me return , If I go out and don't return for most of the day , when I get back they all way's go more crazy and seem even more happy that ive come home.

How do my dogs know if ive only been away for an Hour , or if Ive been away for Five Hours ( Day Light Hours )

as I can see a definite difference in their reaction to me returning after different periods away from home

( When I am away from the house the Two dog's are alone , no one else in the house )

What Do You Think

As a dog trainer I feel it would be good for you to know more about your dogs. Dogs react basically to Classical conditioning which is a form of associative learning. This was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. Though his was an experiment involving the ringing of a bell and the saliva of a dog you can use this in training as well. Two books, if you are interested are "How to be your puppies best friend" and "How to be your dogs best friend" both of the books explain an enormous amount of psychological methods for training puppies/dogs. The books were written by the Monks of Skeet out of Skeet New York. I used these books (pardon the pun) religeously to choose and train hundreds of puppies/dogs. Good luck!

[neverdie]

Are they watch dogs ?

Very good Smeere

[jasreeve17]

dogs dont have a sense of time on a clock like we do; for them two minutes is the same as two hours.... u are just misreading their reaction. but if when u get home after a day of work and u usually take them straight out for their walk, they will automatically respond in a happier way then if u show up after two hours and they were sleeping (and most dogs sleep when their owners are out of the house, and wake up to play and socialize when their 'packmembers i.e. family show up in evening). there are tons of cues that u give to your dogs: when i pick up the garbage bag, they automatically works themselves to a frenzy of going out since i always take them with me to throw the garbage. if i pick up keys, they dont bother to get up off the sofa as they know that i am going in a car, and they are not invited. if they see the laundry bag (kibbutz does laundry in a different building) they always go with; if they see my kids pick up back packs, they know they arent going anywhere so again, dont bother to respond.

they do have a sense of time passing, and they can be regulated ; try feeding your dog an hour earlier then usual and then feed at the usual time. he will show up at the usual time since he has been conditioned to show up at the usual time, even if he isnt hungry.

dogs do develop separation anxiety as a mental illness which actually can be treated, but this doesnt have to do with time, but with the actual separation itself, and since dogs dont have a sense of time passing, they react with separation anxiety as if u are going away for a year even if its for a minute, unless u 'undo' the cues that make the dog react with anxiety (no petting and smooching before going out the door, etc)

the only animal that tells time is humans and it is an artificial, learned, response.

bina

israel

Sorry Bina, but your comments seem to be wild speculation. Dogs don't read clocks, but they have an understanding of day and night, morning and evening, breakfast and dinner time; put them together and that's an understanding of time. To say that only humans 'tell the time' would be acurate as telling the time refers to reading a clock or watch, but to say that only humans understand the concept of time is wildly speculative, impossible to prove and, in my opinion, wrong.

To answer the OP; dogs, similar to most (maybe all) animals understand time as a function of learning over their lives - exactly as early humans did.

Many, many studies show that dogs and other animals understand time. I've linked just one below for you.

http://flamingeagle.spaces.live.com/Blog/c...0!532.entry

For the point I bolded in Bina's post: how can they show up at the normal time if they don't know what time it is???

Edited August 11, 2009 by jasreeve17

[bina]

there is a difference between timing and telling time (clock). of course dogs tell the difference between day and night and different parts of day and night, due to differing amounts of light and sounds, moisture in the air, wind times etc. that is different then telling time (clock times). but they dont know its 8:00. they just know that every day when the heat starts to dry the dew off the grass and they hear the noise of the chicken house feeder start to move that m. my son will leave the house. its the cues that give animals a sense of 'time'.

ever try to milk goats after daily saving times switch back or go forward? . they just arent ready at the time that they are used too. they are still ready according to the amount of light (if i milked every day around twilight, but for me it was towards the end of the work day when our clocks moved, the goats waited at twilight regardless if the clock told me it was 'time' to milk.

the horses and other animals, including our nocturnal porcupine, also regulated themselves to when we came to work at dawn, went home at dusk... it always took a few weeks to move the feeding schedule slowly to a better time as the days got hotter ( our daylite saving time btw not the same as in the states).

to give a dog a command like down (which is usually understood as an indefinate down/stay) the dog should, ideally, just stay down forever until u release it. u cant tell a dog, down for two hours... so the word 'settle' is used, meaning, lay down, quiet down, relax, and then u can get up when u want to.... but the lenght of time can be from a few seconds to after the dog falls asleep and wakes again (the preferable result of the 'settle' command) )

the monks of skeet! i hadnt heard about them for years... (20 or so actually)... i loved their books.

i recently impressed the big jer. zoo when i went to visit on saturday for the first time in over two years. one of my 'kids'(goats) was there; i just walked in to the petting zoo area, and called out her name and come'ere, and she came right over. something she has not done for zoo personal or visitors unless they have food with them...

(nothing to do with time but everything to do with 'cues' /conditioning and memory... since for years i would call the goats to me by name and come'ere as a run on sentence i.e. shemenetcome'eeeeeeeeeree(in hebrew actually ) for feeding, milking, and snacks... better then ringing a bell...

babies cant tell time either but u can regulate them to feedings, and u can drive them nuts by preparing the bottle before the right hour-- 100% pavlov (anybody working in a kibbutz baby house knows what happens when a caretaker starts making the bottles two hours before most of the babies have to be fed. the babies all start crying their hunger cry. even if they just finished a bottle or got their cereal).

my youngest daughter for instance, has no sense of time whatsoever(she's 15 btw), which means that taking tests and things are difficult for her to pace unless she uses a watch. she only uses digital watches but telling her she has 15 minutes means nothing to her. she has to know that 15 minutes means the space of time it takes for her to walk to the bus stop and back again five times, for example. so 'how long do i have?' gets the reply 'as much time as it takes for u to walk to grandma's house and back, etc.

emperically, i dont think dogs do that.

a fascinating subject... btw, what happens to us 'civilized' people when u take away their watches/cell phone clocks? in my house, we eat when hungry sleep when tired. we have no real schedule per say (which is pretty hard on my youngest as she needs a scheduled setting). no bed times (well, now they are all older but even when younger, surprise, they went to sleep when tired, not according to the clock). all three dogs are sleeping, while we are eating (its 1:00 am)... sorry, off topic ......

time to go to sleep --

bina

israel

forgot to answer: normal time= whenever i walk in the door wearing my work clothes (they smell like kitchen and are a uniform). since i work opposite shifts, the dogs know that when i walk in the door, first they go out, then food gets put in their bowl. so even if the bowl is filled previously by one of the kids, when i walk in, they still wait by the bowl after they come back in the house. its not telling time. its cues and conditioning.

[Cuban]

My dogs can't tell the time, they always think it's time to eat and go for a walk.

[jasreeve17]

Bina,

I'm trying to understand your ideas (which often contradict themselves), but it's hard because you're not particularly logical with your points...

Suffice to say that sociologists generally agree that animals understand the concept of time - it's learnt knowledge. It is an interesting area and I accept that the idea of time itself is rather philosophical and thus open to interpretation to some extent.

I've also had many experiences with animals where they knew time. For example, I went to work by the 05:30 train for years. I had a friend; a cow, who would 'mooo' good morning to me. After walking round a blind bend she'd be at the fence, far away from the heard, waiting for me, every day throughout the year, regardless of the amount of light, sound, moisture in the air, etc.

Animals, of course, don't consider the 24 hour clock, but they understand the concept of time; past, present, future, parts of the day, tides, winds, etc - i.e. everything around them that makes up time. This has been proven in numerous tests.