Every time I go to leave my house my dog Luna tries to come with me.
It’s like she experiences FOMO, a fear of missing out.
We would like to believe that our pets actually miss us, rather than missing out on what’s
outside.
But do dogs really miss us when we’re gone?
First of all we need to think about relationships.
Humans miss other humans because we have an emotional connection to them, we have the
capacity to bond and love.
And so do dogs.
It’s just a little harder to figure out How Dogs Love Us.
Which is where neuroscientist Gregory Berns comes in.
He trained dogs to willingly go into an MRI machine and stay there so we can study their
brains and behaviour.
In one of his studies, researchers gave the dogs 5 scents.
Their own scent, the scent of a familiar and strange dog, and the scent of a familiar and
strange human.
What they found was that a certain brain region involved in positive expectations and reward
was activated the most by the scent of the familiar human.
The dogs had a positive association with that person.
But it’s difficult to say whether dogs miss their owners when they leave, or if they just
miss familiar company.
Another study looked at how dogs’ behaviour changed around people with different degrees
of familiarity; their owner, another familiar person and an unfamiliar person.
They found that dogs preferred their owner.
In one of the tests, dogs would wait behind a door that their owner went through, and
not the other people.
But I’ve always wondered if your dog knows how long you’ve been gone.
Do they have a perception of time?
Another study looked at the effect of time left alone on dog’s behaviour.
After 2 hours of being left alone, dogs greeted their owners with more intensity, think more
tail wagging and lip licking, than 30 minutes of being left alone.
But there was no difference in their greeting between 2 and 4 hours.
So we’re not certain if dogs are aware of the length of time they’re alone, but their
behaviour is affected by it.
While a dog’s perception of time may seem unclear, we are comparing it to our human
perception.
Animals have circadian rhythms like us and if enough time passes they’ll feel hungry.
Research suggests that dogs process visual information at least 25% faster than humans,
so, sadly, to them a YouTube videos or movies as a set of weirdly flickering images.
But this means they can react to threats more quickly in the wild.
And when they’re in a stressful situation, the images look really detailed and kind of
in slow motion like the Matrix.
And dogs do see their owners as “the one.”
They do miss us, whether it’s for half an hour or a short vacation.
For me, the feeling’s mutual.
[phone rings]
Luna: Hello? Oliver: This is dog
Luna: Oh hey Oliver Oliver: Joe's been barking at me again
Luna: Oh how embarrassing Oliver: If he'd just talk to me like a normal
person we'd get along fine.
And for more dog-nition, head over to It's Okay To Be Smart to find out if your dog really
understands you.