Well some dog owners think their dog understands every word they say and they can understand words like sit and walkies but aside from that there may be good boy and I knew someone who had a dog and they said the dog knew things about what day of the week it was because it always knew it was a Friday because it always got sweets on a Friday. Anyone here think their dog knows what day of the week it is? Also someone ha a cat and the cat always went out for a walk and came back at 10 o’clock in the morning but one day it didn’t come back and the owner actually rang my mother in a terrible state and said that it hadn’t come back and she didn’t actually think it would ever come back and it never did and she knew that when it didn’t come back that it was gone and it must have got run over outside somewhere but are there any cat or dog owners here who think that a cat or dog can tell the time and things about this?
I hve long, complex, entirely one-sided conversations with my cat. Of course, this particular cat is the most stupid feline I’ve ever had. If he deigns to contribute to the conversation, he simply says, “Mrow.”
It’s all his two brain cells can figure out to say.
~VOW
All of my dogs communicate more clearly than that OP. That made me want to roll up a newspaper.
One of the ways dogs “tell time” is through scents. I’m sure you can imagine that morning, afternoon, and night would have different smells as day warms up and various plants and such create scents specific to certain times of day. Eventually, a dog will realize that “evening grass” smell means it’s time for dinner. They also can tell the difference in a particular scent as it changes over time. In the morning, your dog smells fresh coffee as you get ready for work. Over the course of the day, those smells get weaker and break down. Your dog eventually realizes “8 hour coffee” smell means you’re getting home soon.
I’m not sure about days of the week. If there was something specific that happened on that day that had a scent, the dog would likely connect that scent to a treat on that day. So if Friday was bacon day, the dog would realize that bacon scent meant it was also treat day.
That’s one hell of a run-on sentence you have there!
/Grrr’s cat.
At least one dog owner has made it possible for her dog to talk back
Re: OP’s cat:
We had a cat that wanted to be an outside cat. I had a previous cat eviscerated by a pack of dogs and have kept all cats inside since. This particular cat would still find a way to slip outside, and he’d be gone for days.
Finally, he had been gone for months, and we realized it had been damn near a year. I paid too much money to run an ad in the classified section, describing the cat’s characteristics at length. I asked to be notified even if the cat were deceased.
A few days later, the cat shows up, as if to say, “I got your message…”
Did the cat read the paper?
~VOW
Periods are your friend, and the reader’s, too.
Heck, if you’re in a sufficiently wanton mood, throw in a paragraph break.
In my experience dogs don’t usually pick an owner. Not by understanding words anyway. If they pick a household to go to it’s because there’s food or a girl dog is in heat.
So in a brevity of words “Dogs don’t ‘tend’ to have owners” (from the OPs title)
My cat can tell time, but the switch to Standard time has thrown him. When we were in EDT he would howl outside my bedroom door at 6:04 every morning. Since the time switch he has been doing it at 5:04. Sigh. He has no concept of weekends, though, or thinks that the articles saying that you should get up at the same time everyday are words to live by.
I don’t think dogs understand words very well. I think rather they are telepathic. He seems to know what I mean whatever words I use to describe it. If it’s not actual telepathy, maybe he’s just picking up on very subtle non-verbal cues that I don’t even realize I am providing.
And yeah, the switch to Standard Time always screws him up, but the switch in the Spring to Daylight Savings Time never bothers him at all.
There’s at least one who does: Chaser.
She knows the names of over 1000 toys.
My two house dogs don’t understand dogspeak or me. They’re just not the brightest of animals. Don’t fret, I still love them.
My Yorkie is diagnosed as developmentally delayed. She’s a permanent puppy. Someone said maybe I could teach her hand signals. She’s not deaf she’s dumb. If I hold my hand up to maybe signal her she stares at it til she falls asleep.
I bottlefed Betsy the Beagle. She was not endowed with smarts, anyway. Mr.Wrekker brought her from his Beagle kennel and said she’s not nursing, she would die if I didn’t take over. So I did. She missed her momma-dog training. The only thing she truly understands is what her nose tells. Which means food is her god. Yep, she’s fat.
Just this.
Dogs definitely know “key words”. They don’t understand full sentences or reasoning but they definitely have specific reaction to specific words and phrases. Some my dogs know:
Sit
Lay down
Go lay down
Treat
Walk
Outside
Doggies are going to stay here
Ride
Who’s here/who’s coming
My dogs also have a ridiculously good sense of time. I hate it. They bully me 3x a day for food and once a day for walks. It never ends!
OTOH, my Siameezers know what I’m thinking at all times. I was pondering where the small dog carrier is. I must take Yorkie Grace to her groomer. Before I formed the whole thought, Bear meowed, really loud. As in Siamese loud. Next thing I knew 2 cats were flying to the beams. They dislike carriers coming out for any reason. I had to swear it was only one small carrier for Grace.
They’ve forgiven my afront, and have returned to baking themselves in front of the fire.
I had one dog who seemed to know what day it was, I worked FIFO at the time and on the day I was due home she would be waiting at the front door about an hour before I arrived
Yep, mine, too. Despite changes in weather and time of year, they are within a 10 minute window of waking up in the morning. They know when it’s time to go ride in the Jeep, but that is a bit dependent on angle of the sun in the afternoon, but they nail it, ‘relatively’ with depressing regularity.
And just how many people actually tell their doggies “go bye-bye?”
~VOW