Anyone else have a psychic dog?

[Pleasebequietnow]

My DH works away and comes home late on a Thursday evening. Despite no change to my routine, on a Thursday Ddog is excited and spends evening running to the door every time a car goes past. Every other evening of the week she’s snoring on the sofa.

How does she know? Before I sell her to a circus and make my fortune , does anyone else’s dog do similar?

[MissShapesMissStakes]

Ours is similar. My parents live next door to us and they can hear him. They say he’s quiet when we are out, apart from a minute before the car turns up. He’s barking at the window before my parents can see our car.
I never quite believed them and assumed they just didn’t hear the car until we were getting out. But last week I was in and the rest of my family out. He was all settled, then suddenly started barking and ran to the window. I went to look and could see or hear nothing. Then two minutes later, my husband and kids pull up in the car!

[MrsIronfoundersson]

Yep our dog starts googling at the front door a good 5 mins before DH gets home, and is deaf as a post, so I'm not sure how he knows!

[homemadegin]

Yup two here. Although i suspect one is the ringleader. We stay on a farm, vehicles and people come and go all the time. My sister in law works on the farm and reckons she can predict my arrival home by five minutes as the dogs start barking like crazy.

Only at me, only at my car and always before its to close for them to even hear its engine. Spooky.

[MrsIronfoundersson]

Footling not googling! Ffs autocorrect! I have lost my patience with this stupid phone!!

[TheFutureMrsB]

Yes mine barks any time someone knocks the front door apart from at 3pm Monday - Friday when the kids get home from school and knock the door, it doesn't bother him in the slightest!

[Yellowweatherwarning]

Me, dh +dc have 4 cars between us. Lots of cars in our St. Ddogs know when it's one of our cars ....

[pigsDOfly]

I was going to ask MrsIronfoundersson if your dog was on the laptop, perhaps googling traffic conditions, so that he knows when to be ready at the door to greet DH

[BillywilliamV]

My mum’s dog always knows when it’s my DH who is coming home, she barks and gets excited at everyone else. She ignores him!

[MrsIronfoundersson]

pigs he is surprisingly intelligent but we have had to limit his screen time

[pigsDOfly]

It must be very obvious when I'm expecting someone to call because my dog will stand barking at the front door long before they arrive. I hate it because she just bark over and over and pretty much ignores me when I tell her it's enough.

The funny thing is she never does this any other time. When people actually ring the door bell she'll always run to the top of the stairs and have a little bark and then stop as soon as I tell her to.

[pigsDOfly]

@MrsIronfoundersson

[wigglybluelines]

I learnt the answer to this on CBBC!

Well, it might not answer all the scenarios above, but some of them...

Dogs' sense of smell is so amazing we're smell-blind in comparison.

If someone the dog knows is out of the house for the same amount of time on a regular basis the dog gets used to that and knows when they're due home. How can they tell how much time has passed?

This bit is mind boggling!

They can smell how long it is since you left by how much of your scent is lingering in the air, apparently.

If you want to test if this is what your dog is using, and it's - say - your OH they always wait for at the door, then you can do an experiment. Get your OH to leave then part way through the day, your OH should get someone to a piece of their clothes that they've been wearing that day, back to the house and just leave it in the house. The presence of his freshly made scent on his clothing bugger up their scent-clock apparently.

That's what they did on the program I watched anyway.

Very educational, kids TV!

[Paddingtonthebear]

[Paddingtonthebear]

I take my dog to work with me and about 10 mins before I’m due to leave for the day she gets up from sleeping and paces around by the door. She knows roughly what time it is when I leave. Weird

[Pleasebequietnow]

Wiggley, that’s amazing. I’m seriously impressed at your knowledge and ability to stay awake through CBBC. I’ll give that a go.

Thanks everyone. Doesn’t sound like Ddog is as unique as I thought, but I still love her just the same .

[Floralnomad]

My dh walks home from work and our dog , known as mystic mongrel starts barking when he turns into the bottom of the road , he’s either psychic or dh has a very strong scent ( which no one else can smell) .

[pigsDOfly]

Dogs are amazing.

[Bookworm4]

Mine just check their watch 😉

[spot102]

My dogs deaf. I've watched her sleeping, someone has come in the house and she's jerked awake and jumped up to greet them, after having missed the door opening. So either psychic or fantastic sense of smell. I'm going for the latter, but you never know!

[FairfaxAikman]

My bachelor uncle used to join us for dinner every night. He'd been made redundant just after we got DDog and thus spent a lot of time walking her when she was young and as a result she adored him.

Once he was back at work his timing for arriving at ours was never 100% precise but without fail DDog would either sit at the door or, on dry days, at the end of the drive (she was well trained and had free reign if it was dry) exactly 15 minutes before he arrived.

[Yellowweatherwarning]

I have just watched a deaf /blind white German Shepherd type ddog on Pinterest clearly sniffing the air and realising it's owner was nearly home!

[missbattenburg]

The decay of scent theory is not 100% proven but Alexandra Horowitz was involved in the study (I think) suggesting it has some influence on dog's ability to predict what will happen.

We have, over generations, selected dogs with the ability to scour their environment for every single cue and use that info to predict what will happen and change their behaviour based on it.

A simple example is a dog that knows you're in a bad mood and keeps out your way. You might not say or do anything but the micro expressions on your face, the hard/sharp movements of your body, the smell of you (stress hormones) etc all inform your dog. Over time he learns that particular set of circumstances is more likely to result in being shouted at and that keeping away from you reduces the chances again.

You or your house will be every so slightly different on a Thursday.

For example, four hormones are involved in excitement. It's possible that you are slightly excited on a Thursday and so have slighlty elevated levels of hormone which the dog can smell. Over time he links this smell with your dh coming home.

Maybe you tidy the house a bit during the day and he uses that bit of info.

Maybe you spend a bit longer preparing dinner = info.

Maybe you have a certain, tiny, difference to your facial expression.

Maybe you lift your head a few millimetres when you hear a noise and he learns that you doing this movement several times coincides with dh arriving home soon.

and so on.

fwiw I don't think that makes him less clever than a psychic dog; I think it makes him (and all dogs) brilliant.

[pigsDOfly]

My dog eavesdrops on my telephone conversations.

If I finish a phone call with the words 'okay see you soon', she always starts barking as she knows that it's likely I'll be leaving the house, it usually means I am, and she'll often go and get a ball and want to start a game in order, I imagine to make me forget to leave.

However, if I end the conversation in any other way she doesn't react.

Whether she's hearing the words or picking up on my body language, obviously I have no way of knowing, but it happens every time.

[bobstersmum]

Our old jack Russell who is no longer with us used to know the postman was coming at least ten mins before he actually came, and he didn't come at a set time either! He used to grumble and then go and lay behind the door waiting.

[BestIsWest]

When I was at uni I’d come home by coach and DF and the dog would collect me from the coach station. She’d ignore every other coach but would sit up and get excited about five minutes before the coach I was on arrived.