How do dogs tell time?

[arleigh]

Put a self winding watch on a young puppy that suffers from being alone, the comfort of the ticking sometimes calms them.
I've trained and worked tracking dog and I am always amazed at their discipline ,not being distracted by other scents or other dogs.
If you spend the time training and practicing with a dog, the more they become eager to learn, the reverse is also true.
The dog's discipline is reflective of his master .
Dogs reflect the lifestyle to some degree with in the scope of mutual involvement .

[Sydney123]

Mine looks at his watch.

[unquiltom]

My Aussie's morning walks are at different times depending on my work schedule, but his evening walks are pretty much at 6:30 every day. He seems to know when it's getting close to 6:30, he'll pace around and sit in front of me and bark until I get up to walk him.

[Scooby Snacks]

My wife and I were having this conversation a couple of days ago. Our three dogs get fed at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM. I'm usually in my office in the morning, so anywhere from 7:57-8:03 one of my Great Danes comes lumbering to my office door and peeks her head in to remind me. The timing never fails. The mini Daschund and deaf Dane are unusual, though. The mini Daschund is completely obsessed with food and will wait by the office or wherever I am at least an hour in the morning and evening for mealtime, sometimes two hours. My deaf Dane is the opposite. She doesn't care about mealtime and will sleep right through it unless I wake her up, but indifference to food is common in deaf dogs.

[kevxu]

My neighbors giant boxer appears to be wearing a Rolex.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by Tuck's Dad

I read an article a few months back that purported to show that dogs don't tell time, it appears to be some combination of reacting to changing scent levels, circadian clock, and routine.

What's Up With That: Why Does Your Dog Seem to Know What Time It Is? | WIRED

I saw this tested on one of those animal shows they have on Saturday morning. They showed this dog who always is waiting by the door for his human to be home. On a weekend, he doesn't. But he knows the morning routine for work. There's no other critters to help.

They used a spray which masked his humans scent, and the dog was sleeping, and woke up when his human arrived. It's been researched and dogs have a much more powerful ability to scent than ever known. They can tell levels of scent. The assumption is the dog knows how his human's scent fades, and when its near home time he's up and active and waiting.

This makes a lot of sense since dogs sense of smell is a bit way they navigate the world.

[subject2change]

Originally Posted by El Nox

I have read in multiple threads how dogs seem to know when their people are getting home ... ie ~ 5 pm after work. Some short time before the people show up, the dog starts some action letting everyone else know the time is near.

For the past several months I have taken Pooch out for a run (while I bike with her) after the evening news. However, she starts her, I want to run dance earlier each day. I was looking at the Weather Channel on line and they had a graph showing sunrise, sunset, ... when it occurred to me that Pooch was wanting to run based upon what seems to be sun position in the sky.

I am curious if my rescue Fox Terrier is the only dog that does this.

El Nox

My experience with the dogs I've owned is that they do have a sense of what time recurring events happen. But a couple of the dogs' internal watches seem to run a bit fast when it comes to dinnertime! I think they are either trying to con me into thinking that they are starving and should be allowed to eat early, or fool me into thinking it's "that time".

[gentlearts]

How do they know when I'm going to get the nail clippers, or when they are getting a bath? They just smell it, I guess.