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From what I have read, dogs live in the moment, so they don't think about the future.
Oh, I don't know...my dog certainly knows the future brings him walks! And dinner. He KNOWS when it is dinner time. To the minute. So he is thinking about the future and waiting until he knows it is dinner time and then very insistently lets me know!
I know that dogs know when a big change is coming, something that will change their lives. I remember a dog that on the day he was leaving his family for another place, just sat by the door that whole morning with his back and face leaning against it, looking very sad. They even tried to give him his favorite foods, which he never passed up, but he did that morning. When the car came to get him, he got in without fighting and usually he would protest going even to the Vet; that day he walked in as if he didn't want to cause his family any additional pain and sadness. He walked in the car and the family never will forget the look on his face.
I really wouldn't rely on a dog knowing they are going to die. Maybe if they have been hiding a sickness for a long time or are very, very old but dogs with heart disease for example can die very suddenly. The same with dogs who have eaten poison, are in renal or liver failure and some cancers. I know when my dog was dying he wanted to be around us. He went into respiratory distress, was briefly stabilised and then suddenly decompensated (at the vets). He died after going into cardiac arrest. We didn't even have time to euthanise him. Four days earlier he had just started eating again. At around 3am on the day he died he ate some food and had a big drink then slept with us. People tried to comfort us by saying he "took the decision out of our hands" but really he was very, very sick and his body just couldn't take anymore. Just like a human. Please don't expect your dog to predict his own future. No one can do that.
Oh, I don't know...my dog certainly knows the future brings him walks! And dinner. He KNOWS when it is dinner time. To the minute. So he is thinking about the future and waiting until he knows it is dinner time and then very insistently lets me know!
I agree with above.
We think our one dog knows time, once it hits his time for his meal, he is already standing in the kitchen.
If for some reason things get a little delayed, he comes and stares at us and barks, saying in his own say "Hey feed me"
You could ask the same thing about many species of animals less intelligent than dogs. How do salmon know to swim upstream before they die? How do many other specias travel thousands of miles back to their birthplace to die. It's like genetically built into them. I remember reading an article on here a while back about how dogs spin before pooping because they have to find the earths access or something like that I forget what the explaination was but many things are instinctual with animals.
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