Especially when caregivers must be absent for a considerable number of hours, for example when they go out to work, many people wonder whether dogs have notion of time, that is, if the dog is going to miss them when they are aware of their prolonged absence.
In this article on our site we are going to comment on the available data around the notion of time that dogs seem to have. And it is that, although our dogs do not wear watches, they are not oblivious to the passing of the hours.
The sense of time in dogs
Time sequencing as we humans know and use it is a creation of our species Counting time by seconds, minutes, hours or organize it in weeks, months and years, therefore, it is a structure alien to our dogs, which does not mean that they live completely outside of timing, since all living organisms are governed by their own circadian rhythms.
Circadian Rhythms in Dogs
Circadian rhythms direct daily activities based on the internal schedules of living beings. Thus, if we observe our dog we will see that, more or less, he repeats the same routines in terms of sleeping or eating and these will be actions that he will carry out at approximately the same hours and during the same time. Therefore, dogs have a notion of time in this sense and we will see how dogs perceive time in the following sections.
So dogs are aware of time?
Sometimes we can have the feeling that our dog has a notion of time because he seems to know when we leave or arrive home, just as if he had the possibility to consult a clock. What we don't pay attention to is the language we use, aside from verbal communication.
We attach so much importance to language, we prioritize communication through words so much that we are not aware that we constantly produce non-verbal communication which, of course, our dogs pick up and interpret. They, lacking verbal language, relate to their environment, their peers and us using other resources such as smell or hearing.
The routines shared with our dogs
Almost without realizing it, we repeat actions and schedules. We prepare to leave the house, put on our jacket, put away the keys, etc., so that our dog associates all these actions with our departure and, thus,, without needing to utter a word, knows that it is time for our departure. But this would not explain how they can know when it's time to go home. We will see it in the following sections.
Separation anxiety
Separation anxiety is a behavior disorder that some dogs show, usually when they are alone. These dogs may cry, bark, howl, or break any object while their handlers are away. Although some dogs with anxiety begin to manifest the behavior as soon as they are left alone, there are others that can spend a greater or lesser interval of solitude without manifesting anxiety and it is only after this period is over that they begin to suffer from the disorder.
In addition, the professionals who deal with the behavior of our dogs, such as ethologists, can set schedules in which they gradually get used to the dog to spend more minutes alone. This conveys the feeling that dogs have a notion of time, since some only show the characteristic symptomatology of separation anxiety when they spend too many hours alone. How, then, can dogs control time? We answer it in the next section.
The importance of smell in dogs and the concept of time
We have said that humans base our communication on spoken language, while dogs have more developed senses such as smell or hearing. It is through them that the dog captures the non-verbal information that we emit without realizing it but, if the dog does not manage clocks and is not looking at us, how does he know that it is time for us to return? home? Does that mean dogs have a sense of time?
To resolve this question, an experiment was carried out in which it was intended to relate the perception of time and smell. It was concluded that the absence of the handler made the dog perceive that its odor in the house was decreasing until it reached a minimum value that the dog related so it was time for his caretaker to return. Thus, smell but also circadian rhythms and established routines allow us to think that dogs are aware of the passage of time, although their perception is not the same as ours.
