Do Dogs Really Miss Us When We Leave the House?

Anyone with a dog knows that it s hard to leave them behind, be it for work or a vacation. They always want to come with us and look so heart-broken when they realize we re going without them. But are they truly missing us? And what does your dog do when you leave them alone? And what do dogs do when left alone? 0:00 Intro 0:25 What dogs do when alone? 1:37 Do dogs really miss us? 3:52 Can dogs tell time? 5:18 How dogs see the world? 6:16 How long dogs remember us? 7:03 Do dogs sense our mood? 7:34 Do dogs understand kisses? A study conducted in Sweden video-recorded twelve dogs and monitored their heart rate and vital signs when left alone in their home environment. The aim of this study was to investigate how dog welfare was affected by their time alone. The study revealed that dogs tended to be passive (sleeping or resting) most of the time while they are home alone. The study also examined how dogs react when their owners returned. The dogs showed a significantly higher heart rate during the first and second minute after reunion, perhaps out of excitement to reunite with their owners. Do dogs really miss us? Animal cognition scientists at Emory University trained a group of dogs to willingly go into an MRI machine and stay there so we can study their brains and behavior. What they found was that a certain brain region associated with pleasure was activated by the scent of the familiar human. Another study published in Behavioral Processes looked at how dogs’ behavior changed around people with different levels of familiarity. When the human participants left the room, scientists observed that the dogs would wait behind a door that their owner went through. Further studies have been conducted on whether dogs can judge how long their owners have been gone. Researchers placed hidden cameras when their humans were away for half an hour, two hours, and four hours. The experiment showed that dogs greeted their owners with greater excitement when their humans left them alone for two hours as opposed to just half an hour, which suggests that dogs can, indeed, tell the difference between these times. All we can conclusively say from the studies we have is that dogs can tell the difference between short and long periods of separation. But remember, a dog’s perception of time is different from our human perception. Can dogs tell time? Dogs might not use clocks to tell time like humans do, but they are pretty good at following a schedule. Most dog owners confirm that their canine can sense them coming home way before any human can. Your dog has learned your schedule, and knows roughly when to expect you back home each day. Even if you do get home at an odd hour, your dog can pick out the sound of your particular car coming down the street, and they are always listening for it. There can even be other cues for your dog. Maybe your spouse always starts cooking dinner one hour before you come home. These are environmental cues that your dog has learned signal their owner s arrival. Additionally, when you leave the house, the smell you leave behind fades at a regular rate, and when your scent drops to a particular level, your dog senses you’re about to return. On that note, remember that odors exist in time, and dogs perceive that. Time quite literally smells different throughout the day. Morning has a different scent from afternoon, which smells different from night-time, and dogs remember what different times of the day smell like. How long can a dog remember a person? Dogs can remember the scent of their owners for their entire life. There are many stories of dogs recognizing their owners many years later. Do dogs understand we love them when we kiss them? Dogs don t understand human kisses the same way that humans do. But from repeated pairing with petting and affectionate tones in the voice of the owner, dogs may go beyond tolerating kisses to liking everything that surrounds the kissing experience. But make sure not to kiss a strange dog. When a dog is kissed, it means bringing our face very close to the dog’s face, and this is something that not all dogs are comfortable with and is often perceived as threat. How dogs see the world Research suggests that dogs can take in visual information at least 25 percent faster than humans, To dogs, a YouTube video or Television show looks like a series of flickering images. Furthermore, dogs see the world only in shades of blue and yellow. Colors such as red, orange, and green are out of a dog s color spectrum. But dogs can see ultraviolet lights. Dogs often use ultraviolet light to follow urine marks and spot potential prey. Can dogs sense our mood? Dogs are not only capable of recognizing and perceiving our moods, but they are affected by them. A study conducted by Italian scientists showed that dogs react to the emotional state of their owners by smelling them. They then adopt those feelings as if they were their own.