Since a dog can't tell time...

M

MeriYa

Well-known member
I don't have a dog now, but I'm definitely a dog person and have had many dogs in the past, and hopefully more in the future. One thing I will take into consideration for care of another dog is respecting the fact that they can't tell time. Can you imagine how you would feel if you are sitting in a room for days on end without a clock? After awhile, 10 minutes would feel like 30 minutes, 30 minutes would feel like two hours. Since dogs are very intelligent, if I get another dog there are a couple of things that I'm going to do to help the dog feel calm if I have to be away from him/her for any long period of time.

One idea I have is to get the dog used to hearing a certain "playlist" of sorts that I would play for him whenever I have to go into a store. It takes a bit of thought and diligence, but after a bit of training, I feel like the dog would know that by the time a certain song comes on, I'll be out of the store. Some people might not understand this, but I feel confident that it will work. What do you think about this idea? Do you understand what I'm talking about?
 
I am a believer that dogs love routine and pick up routines quickly. I get what your saying, for example if you take your dog in the car or leave him at home and your running into or to the store correct? Which usually takes you the same amount of time. Therefore you play the same song or string of songs and you usually return and the same song will be playing. Therefore the dog might associate a certain song for your arrival :)

Interesting with many variables but I definitely get the idea :)

I actually give my dog the peace sign every-time I leave the house and in my crazy mind I believe my dog associates the peace sign with me always coming back.
 
Interesting thoughts from you both. Thanks. I do believe that a dog can tell time simply by getting accustomed to your routine. For example, if you get up and go to work every day, the dog knows you will be back and he will be waiting on you to take him for a walk, if that's your routine. My neighbor comes home for lunch every day and lets her dogs out for a bit. They are always glad to go out and happy to go back in. Most dogs are intelligent creatures and get if figured out pretty quickly.
 
A routine certainly is a good way to get a dog familiar with the time between one's leave and return. I'm thinking that by familiarizing the dog with smaller, distinct clips of organized sound, it'll break up waiting time into more digestible, manageable sections, and make waiting easier with, rather than without them. :unsure:
 
What an interesting discussion. I certainly never wondered if my dogs could "tell the time" but I'm pretty certain they had a sense of routines and the rhythms of a day. They seemed to adapt to the different routines of a weekend in comparison with weekdays.

One thing that does fascinate me is that 2 out of the 5 dogs I've had were confused for a day or two when the clocks changed to summer/winter time, which meant a tiny, 60-minute change in the rhythm of the day (always a Sunday). They would start mooching an hour earlier/later. The other 3 dogs showed no sensitivity to this change at all. I came to the conclusion that some dogs are simply more aware of the movements or rhythms of their owners than others.
 
Keats said:
What an interesting discussion. I certainly never wondered if my dogs could "tell the time" but I'm pretty certain they had a sense of routines and the rhythms of a day.
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I'm very passionate about dog wellness, and about animal wellness in general. I really like to think about that kind of stuff, like figuring out that one of the reasons a dog is so excited to see us when we come in the door after being gone for awhile is to the dog it could seem like we were gone for two days, when we were only gone for a couple of hours.

Can you imagine how we would feel in a week if we could not tell time? Society as we know it would not be able to function. What if a boss took the clock out of a workplace? No phones, watches, or other time-telling devices allowed. Someone came and announced when it was time for lunch, and when lunch was over, and when it was time to quit for the day, but that's it. Total chaos would ensue in a matter of days:giggle:.
 
@MeriYa I feel your passion there! What interests me is when you say "Can you imagine how we would feel in a week if we could not tell time? Society as we know it would not be able to function." - there are societies who do not use time as we in the west or the (so-called) developed world use time. I saw a documentary about a tribe in Brazil who live without numbers or time - and they function very well.

Both time and numbers are concepts constructed by humans. I think for animals it is all about rhythms - night and day, hunger and full, etc. And for animals who live with humans, they follow our rhythms, the fact that most of our rhythms are closely tied to clock-watching is neither here nor there to our dogs.
 
Keats said:
@MeriYa I feel your passion there! What interests me is when you say "Can you imagine how we would feel in a week if we could not tell time? Society as we know it would not be able to function." - there are societies who do not use time as we in the west or the (so-called) developed world use time. I saw a documentary about a tribe in Brazil who live without numbers or time - and they function very well.

Both time and numbers are concepts constructed by humans. I think for animals it is all about rhythms - night and day, hunger and full, etc. And for animals who live with humans, they follow our rhythms, the fact that most of our rhythms are closely tied to clock-watching is neither here nor there to our dogs.
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My passion about how we would feel in a week if we couldn't tell time comes from me dealing daily for years with a completely blind family member of mine who suffered from something called Non-24. Schedules (or, using your word rhythms) tend to help that condition in a person, somewhat the same way having a set schedule can help a pet. Just like those people in Brazil, they may not tell time in a modern-day type of way, but I'm sure they have some sort of set routines in place to help them survive.
 
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