Can your pets tell the time?

The routine things are understandable - it always happens at that time, so they remember. We are much the same. If we always get up at the same time, we wake then, without looking at the clock. Some of it is eerie though.

But there was a TV prog a little while ago on this. They secretly filmed dogs when their owners were out and watched them go to a window and watch anxiously when it was almost time for them to come home.

Then they tried various changes to see what happened. They found that if the owner took off a Tshirt at work and someone took it to the home and left it around, and then he/she was later returning than usual, the dog didn't start looking for him/her until the same amount of time had gone by since the Tshirt was left as the owner was usually at work. Its sense of smell was so good that it could gauge how long it was since the owner left a smell in the room, and know when the work-time was over. They can detect a smell that is weeks old.

This would explain something that happened here. My late husband used to make a great fuss petting brother's dog whenever she visited with him. This was in the kitchen (biscuit time!) or when he was sitting in his armchair in front of the TV, and her first move on entering the house was to go to him. Then he became so ill that he spent his last three weeks in bed in another downstairs room. During that time, the dog wasn't in the house, so she never saw him in there.

It was two weeks after his death that she was here again. She came in the front door and went straight - not to the kitchen table or the armchair - but to the room he had last occupied. The bed and all the paraphernalia had been removed. Only after she had checked the room thoroughly did she look elsewhere for him (and then condescended to say hello to me - I know my place)

Yes Poppy can tell you when its time for food she nudges at her food bowl and sits next to the cupboard where her food is kept,also like when's Nell she had difficulty with the clock change for a few days but she soon got back to normal.
We had a cat when the children where young who cried to go out every day to sit on the gate and wait for them to come home from school,she even seemed to know when it was school holidays/week-ends and not bother to move from her bed.

Yes, my dog's anticipation of things that routinely happen is as reliable as the clock. She gets out of her basket the same time each morning (takes a few days to adjust when clocks change), brings me her lead to let me know it's time to go for a walk and heads off for bed the same time at night. She 'woofs' quietly a few minutes before the postman arrives and keeps glancing at the front door. Most of it seems to have developed by her watching me and becoming used to my routines. It's quite funny to look up and realise that she's been watching me.

No doubt about it Brenda and they are very clever in other ways. I used to have a french friend who came round every Thursday and we'd talk for a couple of hours in French. My dog at the time would jump onto the window sill every Thursday about half an hour before he arrived and wait to greet him.

It took me a while to work it out but I then I realised when I uncorked the wine bottle and put it on the hearth to breath, that was the clue the dog was picking up on.

I'm told that our first dog would wander out and sit by the barn at the edge of the driveway about 5 minutes before I was due home, regardless of which shift I worked or whether I'd been shopping or elsewhere on my way home.
DH says it was uncanny.
Certainly all pets, including my horse when I had one, would pester for food at what they determined was their mealtime - the horse would whinny loudly, and kick her stable door if iinside, until I responded. Certainly never got a lie in with her!

You are so right, Brendawymms! My cats definitely know when it is meal time and time for me to get up in the morning even though it is still dark. Also how does a dog know you are about to take them for a walk when you have done nothing to indicate your intention?