How do dogs know the time

Penny Less

Penny Less

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Mine get fed about 5, but they have a few biscuits at 4 because of medication that has to be taken before meals. At 3.55 almost exactly they come in to whichever room Im in and look pathetically at me. The spaniel walks round and round in circles until 4 because I WONT give in. They only got it wrong just when the clocks changed !
 
I try my best not to have a routine for that very reason!
My horses are the same and anything from 3pm is tea time. I don’t have a set routine there either but if I’m later than 6pm they will be waiting at the gate tapping their watches 😂
 
Ours optimisticly make sure I am within sight from about 3.45 (get fed at 4.30). If I am late there is a lot of throat clearing and general fidgets.
 
I used to feed mine just before I went upstairs with the kids for their bedtime. then one day I happened to just feed them early at 4pm, and from then on they decided that must be the new time! so from around 3.30 everyday if we are at home they start fidgeting! of course sometimes we are out until later and they survive :P
 
with both dogs and horses I try to be flexible as I need them to not stress if stuff changes a bit, but they still seem to just know!or they quickly learn a new routine
 
Ours are fed at 7pm and from about 6.50pm they "cannot cope" and play fight and pace and look pathetic. There's no set morning feeding time (between 6-9.30am depending on the day's schedule) so they never ask for breakfast; they just looks pleasantly surprised when it is served!
 
Stanley has his food put in the bowl when my OH gets up, normally about 07.00 but he doesn't eat it until he has had his walk and he has has supper after his afternoon walk (no set time). However, my old horse could time a lesson to the last five minutes and it had nothing to do with what he was being asked to do. 40 minutes in, he always wanted to march down the centre line and stop. it was hilarious.
 
I tend to get home from the horse at 6, which is dog tea time. They get very excited, although Bear forgets I’m going to feed him and takes a toy out to look at the fish with him instead. 9pm is pig ear time and they absolutely know. There are significant looks, sighs, lying at the feet of, flopping onto the floor dramatically. Then there’s the routine of rearing like a pony, grabbing a toy, circling. Love it! 💗
 
5.55am Wake up Ma, me want breakfast. I don’t need an alarm clock.

Then meaningful looks at around 12.30/1.00 for lunch.

Dinner, no set time - depends when we get home from our late afternoon walk. Although I do get ‘the look’ if we pop in to a friends for a cuppa on the way home. Daisy does a really good line in hard stares!!

8.00pm on the dot - sit by the sitting room door asking to go to bed. 8.15pm sits on the other side of the door asking to be let in again, having decided she’s lonely upstairs 😝
 
Its amazing, all my animals seem to know the time, however, in summer when the grass is good, my horses seem to lose this time telling ability.
My childhood cat, Toggy used to wander down the lane to the bus stop to wait for me every afternoon at 4.40pm to meet me from the bus from school.
 
teddypops said:
My collie is 13 now and every single night he takes himself off to bed at 10pm! We have never made it a set bedtime, he has done it of his own accord!
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Mine too. She used to bark at me as if to tell me it’s bed time, but once she realised I’m wasn’t going to be told when to go to bed by a dog she just started going by herself.
 
Hector (my dog) is pretty useless at time, but he always knows when I am on the way home. We thought it was about me arriving home the same time every day, but OH tells me that if I am working late he does not take up his window watching until I am on my way back. Similarly, if I am early leaving work he is early to his window watching post.

Much as I would like to think he is watching over me in some extra-sensory way, I suspect it is more because I tend o ring OH when I set off!
 
We dont have a set routine so no issues with that, they do know when people are coming back though. I'm pretty sure they can hear our car from a couple of miles away as they know and get up to wait.
 
As a child my dog would always stop what she was doing and go to the gate and wait for the school bus.

When older I used to collect my son from school with the donkey and cart. He knew to the second what the time was and adjusted his speed there accordingly, I on the other hand never knew if I was running late or early. The donkey always got us there just as the first class was coming out the door. Other parents used to leave the best parking place for the donkey and one day even one of the bus drivers was defending it from a new parent :)
 
Lovely story rabatsa!
My dogs are not too pushy about meal times. Tea is usually served between 5-6 pm. They don’t nag but if I get up or walk towards the dog room around that time, they will follow me just in case!
 
Mine also seem to know exactly what time it is, noodles will start "chatting" to me an hour before feed time, she generally shuts up when told, then will have another chat 15 mins later and so on, sometimes I get sick of the noise and put her in the kitchen where she is quiet as a lamb, but whether she is chatting or in the kitchen bang on tea time and supper time Ash will pop his head around the door and look at us to make sure we haven't forgotten, no noise, no fuss, just appears in the doorway and looks at us. They don't have set walking times as I couldn't cope with them dictating that they need to go on a walk this very instant lol
 
Awwww I thought my little cavalier was extra special when I was growing up but it seems not 😊 Diddi (my little tricolour cavalier) would wait for me at the front window every day for the school bus to come home, my mum said it was amazing because she always got it spot on!

Mine aren’t too obsessed with feeding time luckily!
 
Dogs baffle me with their time abilities. My old dog used to meet me half way from school at the end of my road. Mum said she only ever set off near 3 so it wasn’t as if she was sitting there all day waiting. Miss the days dogs could be dogs.
 
A lovely old Lab I had many years ago would wait at the back gate, regardless of weather, every evening on work days. However, if I went home at lunchtime, he’d be fast asleep in his basket. Mid-evening, he’d go to bed but if I was still sitting at the computer after 10.30, he’d put his head round the kitchen door. My current girl, not known nothing as The Diva, wakes ahead of the alarm and whinges at the foot of the stairs – or outside my room if I don’t push the stair-guard to, for her breakfast, which has a higher priority than spending a penny. Later in the day, any time from about 4.30 onwards, she starts to pester for her afternoon/evening outing.
 
Oh yes! We get told off if dinner is any later than 6pm. Heaven forbid we have dinner before his majesty :rolleyes:

10pm is also bedtime. There is only about 15min grace on this and if we don't go to bed with him he gets very huffy until he decides he cannot wait any longer!

I am ashamed at how obvious it is that he runs the house...
 
Our 12 year old Labrador has recently started taking Gabapentin at 8 hourly intervals. Breakfast has always been at 6am, but his second dose at 2pm is 4 hours before his usual teatime. It took him no longer than 3 doses to realise that he would be getting a tablet at 2pm so now he wanders into the kitchen to remind me that it is Gabapentin time. He's so great at taking tablets that I just push it into a Blueberry and he swallows it whole. Same thing happens at 10pm, you could literally set your watch by him.
 
Mine not only know the time for feed and walks but days also!

I want to know how on earth when it’s week days dogs start mouching about 10 to get ready for bed, fri and sat we go bed later and they lay still quite happy till about 11/12
Amazes me
 
I think they notice every thing.
Example
Every night my friend’s Dad stood up, said “Time for bed” and switched the television off. The dog got up from her rug in front of the fire and went to her bed in the kitchen.
One evening about 7pm he did the same thing. The dog put herself to bed.
 
Both of mine know 'are you going to bed?'.

Both know that the hairdryer going on is a signal that I am soon about to leave the house. When I used to take a cup of tea before bed (I'm too old for that now, I have to get up in the middle of the night for the loo if I do that now lol) when the kettle went on, the older one put himself to bed.
It's classical conditioning lol, ring the bell, feed the dog, make a link between two previously unlinked behaviours.
 
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