Inside of a Dog_ What Dogs See, Smell, and Know - Alexandra Horowitz [87]
Dogs have not been tested on their ability to detect a specific length of time; but bumblebees have. In one study, bees were trained to wait for a fixed time interval before sticking a proboscis through a tiny hole for a bit of sugar. Whatever the interval, they learned to restrain themselves for just that long … and then no longer. When you're a bee waiting for sugar water, a half minute is a long time to wait. But they patiently tapped their many feet and did so. Other well-experimented-on animals—rats and pigeons—do the same: measuring time.
It is probable that your dog knows just how long a day is. But if so, a horrible thought occurs: Mustn't dogs be terribly bored enduring that day all alone at home? How can we tell if a dog is bored? Like other concepts whose applicability to dogs we are curious about, we first need to get a handle on what boredom looks like. Any child will tell you when he is bored, but dogs don't—at least, not verbally.
Boredom is rarely discussed in the non-human scientific literature, because it is one of the classes of words whose application to animals is thought suspect. "Man is the only animal who can be bored," the social psychologist Erich Fromm declared; dogs should be so lucky. Human boredom is rarely the subject of scientific scrutiny, either, perhaps because it is seen simply as a part of the experience of life, not as a pathology to scrutinize. Its very familiarity gives us a way to define it: we experience it as a profound ennui, as an utter lack of interest. And we can recognize it in others: in their flagging energy, in an uptick in repetitive movements and a decline in all other activities, and in rapidly waning attention.
With this definition, the subjective becomes objectively identifiable, in dogs as well as humans. Flagging energy and reduced activity are simple to recognize: less moving and more lying and sitting. Attention may wane straight into protracted bouts of sleep. Repetitive movements include stereotyped (aimlessly and endlessly repeated) or self-directed behaviors. We twiddle our thumbs when bored; we pace. Animals kept in barren zoo enclosures often pace madly—and, thumbless, have twiddle-equivalents: licking or chewing skin or fur obsessively and constantly, pulling out their own feathers, rubbing their ears or face, rocking back and forth.
So is your dog bored? If you return home to find apparently restless socks, shoes, or underwear that have magically migrated some small distance from where you left them, or straggled bite-sized reminders of what you threw in the garbage yesterday—the answer is both Yes, your dog was bored, and No, at least not during one manic hour of chewing. Imagine a child complaining, There's nothing to do: that is just the case for most dogs left alone. Left without anything to do, they will find something. Your solution, for the sake of your dog's mental health, and for the sake of your socks, is as simple as leaving something for them to do.
Even if you return to find the house a bit unkempt, a warm depression on the forbidden couch cushion, what is also reliable is that the dog is still alive and usually looks well. We get away with leaving them, with boring them, because they generally adapt to their situations without much complaint. In fact, dogs take comfort in habit, in reliable occurrences, just as we might. If so, then their boredom may be tempered by resignation to the familiar. And they may even know how long they typically need to stay in the suspended animation of waiting at home for you. It is one reason why your dog may be waggily waiting at the door even when you try to quietly sneak in at the workday's end. And it is why