Can your pets tell the time?

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?

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!

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.

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.

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.

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)

We had a cat like that Glamma. She used to meet the bus I came home from work on - sitting on a garden wall near the bus stop then running down the garden walls near me as I ran down home. She could also open the latch style front door by patting on the handle till it opened. (She never learned to close it after herself though!)

I'm so glad my dog does not conect with the postman as he comes anytime from 9am till 5pm

It's fascinating when you understand the power of scent for dogs, especially scent hounds like my basset. If anyone has been in my car she won't get in straight away until she's smelt around and will wag her tail when she recognises recent scents that the grandchildren must have left. If one of my sons has been in the house when she wasn't there (out at daycare), she'll go straight to her treat tin because he always leaves a gravy bone by it, to see whether she'll look for it. My son says it's like having the SOCO team checking the path for evidence when she comes through the gate. This morning, there are pawprints in the snow and a line where her nose has been sniffing around.

Our Jack Russells bark at 7.30am on the dot if we haven't already woken up. It doesn't matter whether it's summer or winter, they are never a minute late. I feed them at 5pm and there's no chance they will let me go a minute over.

I'm so glad my dog does not conect with the postman as he comes anytime from 9am till 5pm

When we came home from school, our beloved boxer would be sitting on the front windowsill (it was a wide one) waiting for us.

Sorry didnt think it went first time

Dogs do pick up on the way we do things. Our two Labs always know when I am about to take them out whatever the time even though I think I am not giving any clues. They certainly let me know when 5 p.m. come around as it is dinner time for them.

I think our pets are too clever to let on how clever they are !

Like clockwork are our three cockers.
Quarter to lunchtime on the dot each and every day they begin reminding us and carry on doing so until the food arrives.

Our dog always seemed to know when DH was about to arrive home from work even though the time varied. Way before the car arrived in the drive, he would be sitting at the front door looking expectant - I used to wonder if he had exceptionally sharp hearing and could hear the engine of that particular car from way up the road. Or telepathy - DH always said the dog greeted him more enthusiastically than anyone else in the household
DM had a sun lounger which she always used when she came to stay with us. After she died the dog (who was never allowed on chairs) jumped onto this sun lounger in the garden and absolutely refused to get off it.

DD's friend's cat was always sitting out on the pavement waiting for her to come home from school.

One of my cats would be always waiting for me (or coming up the garden to be ready) by the garage at whatever time of the day I was coming home.
I can only assume he heard the car but I could approach the village from various directions. It was quite uncanny but so nice to have the welcome home !

Every morning at 7.30 our fat cat takes a flying leap from the top of our chest of drawers onto our bed, usually landing on me, not DH.
Occasionally she misses and lands with a crash onto the floor, waking us up even more.
Our rabbit, in her hutch indoors at the moment, then hears all this noise and thumps her feet to be let out.
A relaxing start to our day.

Similar story here, joanna. Oliver Sprout launches himself from the window sill (that is once he's battled through the curtains) and as I sleep closest to the window, I get landed on. Starts general poncing about, followed by a bit of headbutting. This then becomes cold wet nose placed against face, with additional volume purring.

If I still have the temerity to be in bed, he walks across my head, and takes up position on the bedside table, and chooses what to swipe to the floor first. It is usually my Vick put-it-up-your-nose-and-sniff thing. The favoured second weapon is a tub of moisturiser, followed by my glasses. If none of these work, he then swipes the bedside lamp, but not onto the floor, oh no, this gets swiped SIDEWAYS on to my pillow, or on occasion my head.

I get up then.

I bet you're like me, though,phoenix and get up to get their breakfast and open the cat flap, anyway!

Went they all just wonder and a simply perfect addition to our homes.

Aren't bloody predictive text. It's snowing hard here on the Weald of Kent. Big fat wet flakes.

And clearly all have their owners very well trained !

No cat flap here, joanna, just the full concierge facility!

We didn't dare have a cat flap before as Maurice wasn't chipped and had the habit of inviting chums in for a bit of breakfast/lunch/supper. He was particularly friends with Fluff Gordon from next door. Sadly neither of them still alive.

Our cul de sac of 7 houses has more feline residents than human!

I should add that Digby is quite happy to wait for his brekkers, as long as the biscuit bowl is kept topped up he's happy.

Thick, I grant you, but happy nonetheless.