Dog Community

Why is Lola "hiding" her treats in the house?

Posted : 1/15/2007 9:03:53 PM

She has been carrying around a milkbone for about 4 days now, "hiding" it in various places, only to move it again once we discover where it is. She's so cute, she puts the whole bone in her mouth, so we can't see it, then slyly sets it down in what she considers to be a discrete place (ie, in the corner of the room, in the space between the sofa and the wall, crumpled up in the Christmas tree skirt, next to the paper shredder in the office, next to the laundry basket...) and then uses her snout to try to cover it with some kind of imaginary dirt that supposedly covers our carpet. She sweeps her nose along the carpet toward the bone, over and over and over, trying to cover the bone.. obvioiously not succeeding. One time she tried covering the bone with the cord to our lamp. Last night she set it next to my husbands leg (we were sitting on the floor playing Scrabble) and then tried "burying" it by nudging his leg over until it covered the bone.

Anyhow, what is the psychology behind this? This is the third milkbone in the past month (don't give them to her very often) that she has done this with and she only does it with milkbones - she chows other treats immediately!!

Thanks!
Heather

corvus

Posted : 1/16/2007 4:02:35 AM

Burying bones is also known as caching behaviour. In the wild, canids especially do this in order to take advantage of surplus food that they can't fit in their bellies right now. They do that because they're oportunists, and it's better to hide food for later than face the possibility of hunger later if food isn't as readily available.

My dog used to bury food she didn't particularly like. I'd give her biscuits and she'd go and hide it for later. I think she usually ate it soon enough. If I give her really good treats, she eats them on the spot. She doesn't bury anything when there are other dogs in the yard. Our alpha boy is the only one in this pack that feels secure enough to bury food. He does it when he's full and can't eat any more. But the others try to steal it anyway and eventually he gives up trying to defend it and eats it.

I'd venture to say your pup isn't that fond of milk bones. If she's a food driven dog. Either that or for some reason or other she can't eat much of it at one time. In my experience, dogs don't risk burying something they really like unless they can't possibly eat another morsel. Food's safest in the belly. [

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glenmar

Posted : 1/16/2007 6:25:31 AM

Sheba hides the high value stuff for later. Raw is her favorite thing to hide and I always have to make sure that the bedroom door is shut TIGHT when she has a bone or raw since she's fond of burying them in my WATER bed....and it's such a mess when she punctures that darned thing......I've found bones buried under my dress boots, in the corner of the office with a stack of magazines pulled out of the basket to cover it, behind the sofa cushions and IN the laundry basket....usually when it's full of clean laundry that I haven't folded.

spiritdogs

Posted : 1/16/2007 8:26:23 AM

When you have my hound around, and you are another dog, you never hide a darn thing - you eat it on the spot, and then you look around to make sure the hound isn't chasing you down for the crumbs. [

] As mrv said, safest in the belly...but spot on about the whole burying thing. I don't think it matters if it's high value or low, I just think that some dogs instinctually do this, and lordy knows why they pick the things they pick. Although, my Beagle used to "bury" milk bones, too. And, she didn't bother to go back for them... Now, knowing more about food, my dogs only get high quality, homemade, or organic treats, so maybe that's why none of them bury anything anymore. Nah, how could dogs who pick up horsepoop in their mouths be that discriminating? [sm=rofl.gif]

corvus

Posted : 1/16/2007 10:03:32 PM

ORIGINAL: glenmar

Sheba hides the high value stuff for later.

Ha! That blows that theory out of the water, then. [

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I guess it depends on the dog. There's no way in a million years Penny would bury a high value piece of food. Unless she was on her own in a yard with no other dogs, maybe. She used to bury chicken wings for a while, too. She wasn't awfully fond of them, either. Nowadays she wolfs anything down instantly, no matter how ordinary it is. She's at the bottom of the pack and so if it's not in her belly, one of the others could finish up on theirs and come bother her at any moment! They're not allowed to steal, but Penny sure as hell isn't going to trust to that rule. This is her food at stake!

corvus

Posted : 1/16/2007 10:07:46 PM

Although, I'm sure Pyry would have burried that great big blue-tongue lizard he managed to kill while we were out yesterday if he'd been game enough to move it. Instead he just guarded it from everyone. I don't know what is up with that dog, but his prey drive seems to be a broken track. He knows he wants to kill things, but doesn't really know how to go about it or what to do when he's made the kill. That he managed to kill the lizard at all surprises me. I suspect it was accidental. [

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Ruth

Posted : 1/17/2007 1:58:57 PM

Ace likes to bury his treats, too. He is more apt to bury a high-value treat than a low-value one. He does get rawhide bones sometimes (no flames please), and he always wants to bury those. When he is outside, he will actually bury the bone. If he's inside, he will carry it around searching for a good spot and whining because he can't find one. Eventually he gives up and starts chewing.

If you want, you can give the dog a burying space like a pile of blankets or towels, and show him that he can bury his treats there. I tried that because Ace just seemed so pathetic looking for a good inside spot! He never really took to it though. But I got to feel silly crawling on the floor and pretending to bury his bone underneath a blanket!