Do Our Dogs Miss Us When We’re Away?

Just a dog mom to 10 year old Harvey is joining us from Texas. Hi, Marissa. Well, I'm so glad to be here. So, yes, I am the lucky mom to Harvey. He will be 10 later this year. Harvey and I actually met 10 years ago, but I'm quite positive we were family in a past life. I just know it. We met in San Diego back when I lived in California. I was volunteering for a foster organization. I was his foster mother. And as the story goes, of course, I meet him. And I know instantly that I've known him for many times. You're his person. Oh, yeah. Yes, he is my person. So, yes, I was a foster win, as I like to call it. So Harvey and I have now spent the last nine years traveling the United States together. We've lived in California. We lived for a little bit in Minneapolis. We were in Chicago for four years and now we're down here in Dallas, Texas. So I swear he has more airline miles than most people do. But it's been really fun to just travel his country with him and kind of explore with him. But my question for you. So we've been together a long time. And whenever I get ready to leave or head out the door, Harvey seems to do the same thing. So whether I'm going out to the mailbox for a minute or maybe I'm going for some errands that I'm running for the day, Harvey will get anxious. So my question for you is more of the concept of time. So do dogs understand the concept of time? Does he understand that when I'm gone for five minutes or the full day? Does he know how long I've been gone? Because it seems like either way, it has the same emotional impact on him. When he sees me getting ready to leave out the door. Yeah, he seems to get that same emotional reaction. So I'm curious just what he's thinking about as I'm getting ready to leave out the door. Great observation. You know, the flip side of that attachment we were talking about is that in separation, dogs are stressed. They're anxious. Right. And that's part of the bond, actually. It's the kind of negative side of the bond, which is that when you're attached to someone, you don't want to see them go. And when you're gone, they're stressed. And when you're gone, there's some stress involved. Probably why Sadie perked up when you returned. Right. There's the relief of that. And it is a really cool question to say, well, does that mean they don't have a sense of how long you're gone? And there actually was research that looked at this question. What they did was they looked at the greeting behavior that you get when you come back in the door. Right. That great, enthusiastic reply. Yeah. And they had people leave their dogs for a few minutes or a half an hour or several hours, and they looked at the intensity of the greeting, and they found that the longer the people were gone, the more tail wagging, licking, shaking, intensive greeting they got. So dogs in their behavior look like they do appreciate the distance, the time you've been gone from them. And in that way, they're kind of marking time. Yeah, it's definitely different. Even though they're, whatever, excited every time you come back in the door. Yeah, I noticed this with Sadie that, especially when she was really well, that if you're gone for a few minutes, I remember coming to think, look, I've only been gone for a few minutes and you're this excited. But if you're gone for a long time, she would like go around in circles and bark and yelp and do all the things. Pull out all the stuff. Pull out all the stuff. Toys. Yes. Yes. Run and get a toy and all that. He wants to run and go grab something and bring it back to me and show me right when I get back. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I also think they mark time through smell, right? Smells change over time. And our spaces smell like us, right? The longer you're gone, everybody has a smell. It's a perfectly normal thing. And our dogs know it. They'll recognize us by our smell alone. The longer you're gone, the less your space smells of you being there. So time is kind of marked in the passage of odor during the day. Everything is when you read this book, Marissa, everything is through the nose. Everything. Everything is about the smell. I mean, because it's how they see the world, right? They see the world through their nose. Yeah. And that's how their brain works. Olfactory cognition. Yeah. Thank you, Marissa. Thank you. All the best to you and Harvey. You and Harvey, 10 years together. That's beautiful. So you believe that trying to show your dog that you're the boss can be harmful. And we know that there are lots of trainers who do that. You know, like you, I'm the one in charge. Right. Why do you why do you not condone that? Well, again, I look at the science, you know, people are looking at wolf behavior to try to explain how you should be with your dog. And there's very old science that said, oh, when you look at wolves in a captive environment, they establish a dominance hierarchy and there are leaders or alphas who have access to all the resource. But then when people can actually study how wolves behave naturally in the wild. Yeah. It turned out they live in family packs and there are leaders of the group. It's the parents who live with their offspring and their offspring's offspring. And so they're not maintaining their leadership by force, by being bossy. They're not bullying. Right. They just know more. And so they tend to be in charge. And we are also in that kind of situation. Dogs are our family. They view us as parents, essentially, in that pack. And we control all aspects of their life already. Right. We don't need to worry that they're going to try to threaten our leadership and boss them or bully them around for it. I notice that sometimes your dog knows that you're coming even before the car pulls up or if the car is in the driveway. Or we've seen these stories on social media of the dog waiting in the window for the kids to come home or the dog knows that the school bus is coming long before the school bus comes. How do they know that? Are they smelling it or are they they just know it's this time of day? I think both things are true. Right. Again, they're great. They understand our habits. So if we create a habit, they learn that perfectly right away. That's how you can train a dog just by that's how Pavlov trained the dogs. That's right. Right. Like they learn association. So if you come and go at the same time every day, they know when that time is and they're ready for you. And if you feed them at the same time every day, they know that as well. Right. Even if we don't think we're doing it, you know, the dog will show up ready to be fed. Yeah. But also, I do think the smells of the the room change over the course of the day, and they're attuned to that, just like it gets dark outside and we notice that the day is ending. Right. It's a totally normal thing for us to notice. They're also noticing the day in odors. I think I think this is so interesting because, you know, for years we were told that that your dog doesn't know the difference between five minutes or five hours. So what you were saying to Marissa really changes all that it that your dog does. Your dog isn't saying, oh, well, seven oh seven. Oh, or it's been twenty five minutes or it's been an hour. Right. That's that's that's a human concept. That's a human concept. Yeah. They do know the difference between it's been five hours or it's been five minutes or it's been five days. That's right. Right. They do feel that. And they're noting all those changes of the day. And as as we'd expect, right, when you're not there, they're stressed. Yeah, it's stressful to be apart. Right. But they also can come from that stress for some dogs. It's more stressful than others. I had a dog, Sophie, who just literally you couldn't I couldn't leave her anywhere. She had such anxiety. Yeah, I mean, in children in the hotel rooms, it's like an insecure attachment. Right. Yes. But with a dog who has a secure attachment, when you come, they call. I always say that one of the great joys of my life has been my dogs. So I am deeply committed to their well-being, just like our friends at the farmer's dog from my golden retrievers to my cocker spaniels. I've had 21 dogs over the years. They remind me to slow down, to be present and to appreciate the small comforts in life. The farmer's dog makes human grade food for our dogs with real ingredients and minimal processing to all my fellow dog lovers. You know, our beloved companions give us so much. And that is why the farmer's dog helps us do our best for them.