A little over a week ago I rescued a little dog that had gotten out of it’s yard. He spent the night with me, and we located the owners the next day. He was very friendly and affectionate.
About a week later I stopped by to see if he was out in the yard. The owner was just leaving to take him for a walk. He didn’t seem to recognize me by sight or sound of my voice, but boy once he took a sniff it was clear that he remembered the nice rescue man.
I’d say that most dogs will recognize someone they once knew by smell forever, by sound fairly well, but visually they are often not too sure even with those they know well. I’ve had my own dog fail to recognize me by sight when I came home from a trip wearing the rain coat I virtually never wear at home.
A little over a week ago I rescued a little dog that had gotten out of it’s yard. He spent the night with me, and we located the owners the next day. He was very friendly and affectionate.
About a week later I stopped by to see if he was out in the yard. The owner was just leaving to take him for a walk. He didn’t seem to recognize me by sight or sound of my voice, but boy once he took a sniff it was clear that he remembered the nice rescue man.
I’d say that most dogs will recognize someone they once knew by smell forever, by sound fairly well, but visually they are often not too sure even with those they know well. I’ve had my own dog fail to recognize me by sight when I came home from a trip wearing the rain coat I virtually never wear at home.
It seems to me that dogs mostly don’t rely in faces for recognition, but can recognize someone they know well from far away by shape and how they move. Most of my dogs have seemed to recognize uniforms. They hate the mailman, and there are a lot of air-force types due to the base in town, and postal and AF dress uniforms are close enough that the dogs seem to key in on them. The current one goes off at any male wearing a dark baseball type cap. (which the mailmen wear)
I used to have a Border Collie/Aussie cross who not only remembered people when she saw them again, she remembered their NAMES. She was especially fond of a friend of ours named Michael, and she’d perk up if she heard us say ‘Michael’s coming’. She was the same way about her ‘Aunt Tommy’.
That’s the truth. Come to think of it, you could write a long dense novel series about that and call it something like, “Remembrance of Things Past”. Better yet, write it in French!
