Our dog (half border collie, and a genius) does not drink water when we leave him alone, so that he won’t feel the need to pee. He drinks a lot of water as soon as we come back. I don’t think being locked in a house has contributed to our instinct.
Yes, we can fake him out, but he also can fake me out. One day in the field he really wanted to run out of the schoolyard to visit a construction site. I prevented him. He then started playing along. I took him off the leash, and he trotted very nicely away from the entrance - until I got far enough away, and then he doubled back and was gone.
Not exactly long term planning, but definitely planning for the future.
What kind of future are we talking about? I can see a dog (or cat) looking five minutes ahead, or even half an hour ahead – but not a day, a week, or a month. How much “ahead” does an animal have to look for it to constitute an actual sense of the future?
“running away when armed is cocked” is just a conditioned response as much as Pavlov’s dog drooling when the bell rings.
It doesn’t mean the dog anticipates the food. And so he starts drooling. It’s just a conditioned response.
Or at least I don’t think it means “I, dog, anticipate food”.
I guess that’s what the whole discussion boils down to, though.
Like Ghanima, you’re attributing an anticipatory thought process to something that might have a completely different meaning.
Sometimes, my dog gets his food and will lay by his bowl until we start eating. My wife likes to say, “awww, he’s wants to eat with us.”
Well, no. I’m the alpha dog, and in the wild, the alpha dog eats before the sub-dog. That’s why he’s waiting for me.
My dogs also don’t usually drink when we’re gone. They don’t really eat when we’re gone, either. Sometimes, when we come through the door, the first thing the big one does is go right to his bowl and start eating.
I don’t think it’s because they’re afraid they won’t be able to poop or pee. My dogs are GREAT at holding it. They can be walked at 4pm and not go out again until 8am. And, they’ve never been neglected in that regard. If they really could really anticipate the future, they would know that they were going to be let out before they had to go and therefore could eat and drink to their heart’s content.
So, what’s an alternate reason? I’m not sure. For one, my dogs don’t normally drink except after they eat. I believe they think that eating is something that the master is in charge of, so they don’t do it when we’re gone.
But, I could be totally wrong.
Dogs are strange. And, perhaps there is no real difference, even in humans, between a conditioned response and anticipating the future. Where’s BF Skinner when you need him?
Another dog story: When I get ready in the morning, I often go from bedroom-bathroom-bedroom several times.
My border collie (supposedly the smart one) will race down the stairs every time I exit a room, supposedly anticipating my going downstairs. When I don’t follow, he runs back up the stairs. My other dog, however, will calmly wait at the top of the stairs until I actually start walking down.
I’m not sure how they learned totally different behaviors from the same set of actions. There doesn’t seem to be a reward or punishment associated with either one.
We used to have a dog that appeared to understand the concept of “tomorrow,” at least in the context of going somewhere.
This dog liked car trips, and if she saw us putting things into the car, she’d go bonkers. Telling her “We’ll go bye-bye tomorrow” calmed her and sure enough, tomorrow she’d be excited and jumping up at the window to stare at the car. If she spoke, she’d surely be saying “I got shotgun!”