Can dogs read clocks?.

Its called his Body Clock Barney goes to bed at 10pm and wakes at 6am day in day out.

It's your behaviour he's watching, Frank, not the clock. I'm sitting here typing with my two Jack Russells snoozing beside me. The minute I close the lid of my laptop they will leap to their feet and run to the back door as they will assume it's time to go out before bed.

Of course they can't. Dogs follow sequences of actions by their humans. For instance because I get up and go through to the kitchen when the cooker timer pings, Grace has learned to do the same (following me through as she is always after something to eat) so now she gets up and "tells me" that I have to go through. In the same way she usually goes for her bedtime walk around 10 when I also switch off the laptop so when she hears the laptop shut down with its final "ping" she is up and looking for her lead.
Andie will have established that you do certain things before he goes to bed , which inked to an "inner clock" which I am convinced dogs possess, he "knows" when it is time. Grace usually goes out about 7 in the morning but that is also linked to when I come downstairs. When the clocks go forward she may be displeased at being kicked out into the cold so early, but she will do what a dog has to do just because she does.

As usual, merlot had nipped in by dint of expressing it much more succintly!!!

merlotgran I wish Barney would do that come 10pm he is snoring his little head off after spending 10mins getting his blankets into the right position,I do tidy his blankets but he insists on doing them for himself.

We had a dog called Barclay. Every morning she followed me each time I went to the kitchen, usually to make my numerous cups of coffee. She sat and watched, and when I put one spoonful of sugar in my cup, she went back to the dining room. As soon as she saw me make the cup where I put 3 spoonfulls of sugar in she shot to the top of the stairs and waited outside our bedroom door for me to bring DH's drink up.

It's all patterns of behaviour isn't it?
I have the same prob with Grace's bed which is under our stairs. I tidy it and make it nice for her and 10 minutes after I have gone upstairs I hear her pushing and pulling it until it's how she wants it - half way down the hall!

Andie mainly likes to sleep in the corner of my bedroom.
He never gets on the bed.
He has another basket in the kitchen but he mainly uses that for a little afternoon nap.

Frank

Mine do that too gracesmum it must be a greyhound trait as none of the other breeds I've owned did it.

I love these stories . My basset, Nell, is the most quirky dog I've ever had. She likes her manky old chewy bone in the hearth, not tidied away, so puts it back and gives me a withering look. She wanders off to bed at 11 o'clock, so if I haven't ensured she's been in the garden for a wee just before that, she'll watch me get ready for bed, get in, and then tap me to say she wants to go in the garden! When I get up in the morning, she only comes downstairs when she hears her food bowl being filled. She plays cricket with her rubber chicken and a ball, which she pushes round the room - don't know where she learned that! She sits watching the front door if I hoover the carpet - must be having visitors!

I guess I have reinforced behaviour by laughing or praising her, giving her more attention when she does these things. I sometimes catch her weighing me up. It's fascinating how dogs so quickly develop habits from humans' lack of understanding about how they interact with us.

I've noticed that horses will go and stand by a gate waiting for their owners to bring their food even when it's not at a set time.

My cats start yowling and banging the bedroom door before I get up at about six.

Towards the end of lunch break, especially in good weather, at my last school, the gulls would begin to line up on the roof, ready to enjoy the pickings of the students' lunches.

(Not on topic but, at the same school, I remember walking through the grounds after lunch; a swing bin opened and out popped a squirrel bearing a sandwich..)

Yesterday, at Birdalnd, the penguins were queuing up by 2.15, ready for their 2.30 feeding time.

And spot on 12.30 DH will say "Well, will you look at the time!" but he knows about clocks..

We have two stables. The Shetlands take themselves to bed in the larger one each night and the geese wander into the smaller one and snuggle up together. When the late news comes on Bear gets up to be let out. He conducts a short tour of our land then takes himself to bed down with the Shetlands.

I like these stories Our chickens always knew when tea-time was and would come and peck at the back door for their snackeroos, or into the kitchen if the door was open.

grace is right about patterns of behaviour.

The sun is a good clock, and my body clock is pretty good too.

OH used to have a dog who every Tuesday morning sat outside the bedroom of a chap who would go to collect his pension and buy the dog a treat. Thinking it must be the food being cooked for breakfast OH changed his menu to try and fool the dog - but still every Tuesday there he was waiting!!

Our labrador that we had since she was a pup for 18 years, would know when my husband's car turned in at the top end of the road that we lived in, a block away. She would get up from where she had been snoozing and go and wait by the gate for him. (He would come home at different times each day).

When my son had a 'nervous breakdown' in his final year at university, she did not leave his side for the whole time it took him to recover. Literally. She stayed with him day and night, wouldn't even be called away to eat, we had to feed her wherever they were. She accompanied him to doctor's visits, anywhere and everywhere he went, she went too, with him holding on to her leash. I have never seen such faithful devotion and I have no doubt it contributed to this recovery.

My late mother used to feed a hedgehog every night. While she was kind to animals, she didn't like them scuttling about her so she would put the food in a metal dish and pop it on the paving outside the back door at about half past ten, bringing in the previous night's dish at the same time. However, on occasion when she was late, she was abruptly reminded by a small spiky person banging his dish on the paving.

D1 and SIL went out shopping early one Saturday morning, when they arrived home Wilbur their dog was missing. They searched the street and found him at a neighbour's house. The woman said he came every week day to her front door and she would let him in. After spending the day with her dog, Wilbur would go home at around five pm. When D1 and SIL went shopping early he must have thought it was a just another day when they were gone till late afternoon. Sadly that was the end of Wilbur's rendezvous, the hole in the fence was mended.

Faye poor Wilbur! He wanted company during the day. You can now fit tiny cameras to pet's collars to see what they get up to when they set off on adventures.

My dad used to drive a neighbour to work at the same place and I swear their dog could hear my fathers car coming up the hill on the main road before turning right and then left into our road. She would get up and seem to be listening well before the car got onto our road. The car was dreadful old banger though! Maybe that explained it.

It is instinct and body clock. My dogs always knew when I was due home from work, same time each time. They also know when I was going out whether it was to work or just out - different outfits perhaps, maybe picking up some sense of my feelings. They knew when they were going to eat - tummy rumbles perhaps. Dogs often detect earthquakes shortly before they happen [as do many animals], they can detect cancer, and of course their wonderful noses can be trained to detect drugs, alchohol, dead bodies etc. Their sense of feelings and scent is far higher then ours - they live basically on instincts.

I believe there has also been research to shows that dogs can sense when their owners are returning home even when this is at very different times of day. I think others have mentioned this happening earlier. I believe that tens of thousands of years of living inter-dependently has given dogs an almost sixth sense in their ability to tune into human thoughts. Pity we haven't managed to do the same