Do dogs have any concept of time?

[adrian]

I read that they don't. Is this just a old wive's tale? Then again, our pup Ollie seems just as thrilled to see us after half an hour as three hours.

Any thoughts appreciated... this interests me.

Any folks into the Ollie the Pug blog can check the latest entry (on this subject) here:

http://communities.canada.com/victor...e/default.aspx

[GracieNEmmasMom]

I've read that they don't but some how I thinks that's not true. The reason why I think it's not true is because when it comes to dinner time, if I'm not feeding them at 6:00 p.m., I'm getting a bunch of pug snot blown at me. Gracie sits there and does these little "barks" at me letting me know what time it is.

[Milosmom]

In my opinion that depends...
My boys don't know the difference if I've been out of the house 30 seconds or 3 hours,they act like I've been gone for days.
On the other hand, for some strange reason they certainly have the built in concept of when it's dinner time.
Without fail every day when 4:30 rolls around, if dinner isn't being served promptly my Milo will be at the closet which houses the kibble bucket , scratching insistantly on the door until his pleas of starvation are answered.

[ZoeZoesmom]

Mine do! They sleep in bed all day and about ten minutes before we get home from work they go downstairs and sit on the couch and look out the window waiting for us to come home. (my daughter has witnessed this)

[bugs]

Jill knows exactly when its 6pm because that is when daddy gets home from work. If he is late she paces the floor waiting for him. The other 2 only know because of the way she is acting.

[bumble]

I had four cats when I broke my ankle and slept on the couch for weeks. They each seemed to take "shifts" of 4 or 5 hours to on my bed to watch me. They would always wait until the next one came before they left.

[hypermike]

Reggie absolutely knows. He sits on the actual seat of the couch most of the day. Some time around 5:00 (30 minutes before I typically get home), he moves to the back of the couch to watch for me out the window.

If I come home early, he's not sitting by the window. I've witnessed this countless time. I want to set up a webcam just to prove this.

He bounces on my face a few minutes before 6:00 AM every morning, right before the alarm goes off.

[Cathy and Winston]

I'm not sure about most of the day since I'm a stay at home mom and I'm in and out all the time, but if I'm not on my feet feeding Winston at 5:00pm sharp, he lets me know. Dinner time is one time of the day he does know.

[akc0104]

I think so. If I came home from work at an odd time I'd find Schuyler sleeping on the couch or bed. Normally at night she'd be laying with her back against the front door.

[ChumleyPug]

Chumley has some sort of internal clock because when we try to sleep in on the weekends he begins the face & ear licking promptly at 6:30 am to get us out of bed to feed him his breakfast! Also, when I get home from work they are usually excitedly waiting to get out of their kennels, but if I get home early or drop in during the occasional lunch hour they are usually just sleepily laying there as if to say "what are you doing here?"