Hiding stuff!! Badly...

[mdkel]

Hey everyone....

Just a "simple" question:

- Why do dogs hide stuff? Bones, sticks, bully sticks, etc etc??

I introduced zappa to a bully stick a few days ago (I finally found them here in Portugal). First time he bark at it, jumped a lot, etc., and finally ate it. but yesterday I gave him one and he went to hide it ( I just found out another one in a vase lol )

Why do they do this? it's not like zappa is going to eat it later....

 

[JoanneF]

Ancient instinct to keep some for later, hidden from other animals.

 

[Violet Turner]

Hiding things is just a natural instinct from the wild. @mdkel In the wild dogs didn't know when or how they were going to score their next meal, so they began to store their extras. Dogs developed the evolutionary behaviour of burying their food for later use. I find it funny when i go out to do gardening and find a chewed up lambs leg under the soil.

 

[Josie]

It’s like when Dennis eats his food as fast as he possibly can even though he knows no one is coming to pinch it!

 

[Caro Perry]

Rosko ( my previous Welshie) used to "bury" his snacks under the tangle of wires behind the TV!

 

[mdkel]

Well, zappa's idea of hiding is simply letting the bully stick (or whatever) laid on top of the dirt in the vase, no very well hidden

Was just curious about this...

 

[arealhuman]

It’s like when Dennis eats his food as fast as he possibly can even though he knows no one is coming to pinch it!

We have the same with Jimmy! No burying or hiding though. Yet.

 

[doggie1]

Eddi is great with everything He doesn't bury anything and you can take anything away from him (not that I do) but early on we bought him some of those white bones to chomp on as he destroys all of his weak toys. He never ate them and growled if anyone went near him. I tried him again a few weeks later and the same thing can happen. Don't bother with them now. Strange though, another strange thing in the enigma that is Eddi the Patterdale.

 

[Sezzy]

Misty sometimes hides her treats. They turn up under cushions, in her bed, behind furniture, in flower pots, a couple of times she’s even pushed stinky horrible chews under my legs while I’ve been sat down

 

[leashedForLife]

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my Akita used to try to "bury" her bowl with leftover food in it... in the wall-to-wall carpet, by scrubbing the nap toward the bowl over & over & over, with her poor nose, which of course would be rug-burned & half-peeled, & look ugly for days.
So when she was off her food, U knew it immediately - by the sore puffy spot on her nose-leather, the faint bloody stripes on the rug all radiating toward her dish, & her abashed air. Instinct is a wonderful thing, but instinct didn't evolve beside S/S bowls & nylon rugs! - in the modern world, instinct can get dogs into trouble, which might be minor & passing, like her nose-burns, or much-more dangerous & potentially lethal, such as chasing a small furry into the path of an oncoming car doing 35-mph.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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BTW, "hiding things badly" isn't limited to dogs, among adult nonhumans -
my pony Gingerspice would play hide-n-seek in the pasture with me, & her version of "hiding" was ridiculous - she'd stand with one foreleg & her shoulder lined-up behind a tree... with her big brown eyes & bangs peering around one side, above her chocolate-colored muzzle, & her whole torso & rump, of deep chestnut, sticking out past the other side.

I loved it - it was so cute, she looked like a toddler peeping 'round a corner...

- terry

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[JudyN]

Jasper once tried to bury his football. He dug a hole, dropped the ball in it, but the hole wasn't wide enough. He moved the ball, dug it a bit deeper, tried again - still not wide enough. He repeated this several times but he just kept digging deeper, but the hole never got wider than his pointy face, so it was never going to work