Are our pets tuned into us ?

[Moon Monkey]

I got 3 cavalier king charles spaniels and have noticed a couple of 'strange' things that I thought someone could explain to me.

My wife works about 5 minutes from home and often pops back at different times of the day, the dogs sleep one hell of a lot but suddenly all 3 will wake up and head to the front door and wait approx. 5 mins and hey presto my missis turns up. Gives me a nice warning really as I get time to lose the cigar, log off the poker and look busy.

Secondly sometimes while out we come across people that I know and dislike but the dogs haven't met before and they take an instant dislike and either yap or ignore them. This works in the opposite direction too as when we meet friends who have never met the dogs and the dogs go mad for them. There must be some kind of frequency they are picking up on or something, but the thing with my wife heading home from work means this must work over about a mile and a half range minimum.

Cheers for any explanation.

[scottVee]

Hi,

We have cats that do the same thing. They seem to know when my wife is coming home. But on a quiet day, even I can hear her car from several blocks away. No big mystery.

We're cat people. Yet I get along with dogs because I approach them in the way they like to be approached. Our attitude toward them goes a long way toward how they react to us.

With a little patience, I can get even the grouchiest neighborhood cats to come over and check me out. Seems like animals are sensitive to a lot of things that we just don't pay attention to -- posturing, size, tone of voice -- and have different alarm zones.

With a little experience, it's pretty easy to tell if a dog is defending a territory or whether it's out of its element, whether it wants to play or fight. I think it's the humans who are typically dense in these encounters. Animals seem to read us like a book. Probably because their lives might depend on it.

= scott

[Great Big Sea]

How about this:

When my cat comes into my room, and I'm on my chair watching my TV, I have to stand up before she will jump onto my bed. Yeah my parents keep on telling me that she's got me "trained." I think so too!

Edited November 17, 2006 by Great Big Sea

[Sario]

same here haha wf patience, even animals that dont trust you will come and eat from ur hands.^^

[Tooth_and_Claw]

thats really nice unluckily for me i dont have any pets

[The Three Ventriloquists]

Maybe it is because that animal lovers would have an animal smell about them and the pets would pick up on that and people who do not have or like animals do not know how to approach them. That and answering the original question you have to remember how sensitive animals senses are. There's also the point that i would think that the first thing that people do when they come home and see there pets, they feed them so Maybe the animals would associate that time of day with food.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

I don't know what the explanation is for the dogs knowing when someone is coming home.

As to dogs and cats being able to sense people that like or dislike them I suspect that they are very sensitive to body language.

Cats have a reputation for jumping on the laps of people that don't like them. There is a very good explanation for this. Humans make eye contact with people that they like but avoid eye contact with people they don't They tend to do the same to animals, hence people that like cats will look at them whilst people that don't won't. Now to a cat making eye contact is a challenge. Cats will make eye contact before a fight. Hence people that like them will actually seem to challenge them and they will tend to go to the people that don't like them. Maybe there is something similar going on with dogs, but they are more tune into the body language of people and so know who likes them.

I know my cats can sense my mood. If I came home from work after a bad day I would hear them all disappear out of the cat flap almost as soon as I got in through the door. They would return after I had time to unwind. I suspect that they could tell from my foot steps what mood I was in. If I was stomping more heavily than normal it was a sign to leave me alone for a while.

[Conspiracy]

my cat seems to understand the moods im in plus every day when i come home from work shes always waiting for me at the front door like if she knows im coming home

[Moon Monkey]

Maybe it is because that animal lovers would have an animal smell about them and the pets would pick up on that and people who do not have or like animals do not know how to approach them. That and answering the original question you have to remember how sensitive animals senses are. There's also the point that i would think that the first thing that people do when they come home and see there pets, they feed them so Maybe the animals would associate that time of day with food.

Could be the animal lovers thing as all local dogs and cats come round our house as the gardens are open and I never had any bad experience with any animal in fact we have a couple of ferral cats which live on our patio which run from anything and everything but will eat from my and my wifes hands. The dogs get fed morning and night and my missis comes home during the day at totally random times so it cannot be the food thing and anyway I am there so if they are hungry they would soon let me know.

We live next door to my wifes parents who have a dog which I rescued as a puupy. I work in the UK for months at a time but while I am at home the dog spends most of the days with me and goes home at night. When I am leaving I usually fly at night and she sees the suitcase the evening before I leave and she goes home and never comes round again till I return not even the next morning to check if I am there. she knows I am off and when I am back.

Finally I used to have a Bernese mountain dog (dead now) and when I came home I can see my front door from the end of the street. I used to turn into the steet and I would always be able to see her sillouette through the mosquito net, tail wagging as if she knew I had left the pub and was on my way home. Actually maybe she could just smell the beer or hear my singing

[clockworkgirl21]

My cat has me trained. Lydia will meow at my bedroom door once, and she knows I'll drop whatever I'm doing and let her in.

[Bebi]

Great explanation as to why cat's make a beeline for people who don't like them Waspie, spot on

My cats are all real characters, the other day we returned home and I made a joke that our eldest (Cuddles) would be sneakily logging onto the internet while we were away. We opened the door to find him actually sitting on my laptop keyboard LOL I managed to snap a quick photo before he slunk off - as you can see he looks very sneaky - was he playing Neopets?