What Do Dogs Think When You Leave the House? Do They Miss You?

Whether you’re out of the house for several days on vacation or simply gone for a few hours to run some errands…what does your dog think when you’re away?
Do they think you have abandoned them? Do they feel confused?
And have you ever wondered what dogs think of humans? Do our dogs know we’re humans, or do they think we’re just larger dogs?
Keep watching for a thorough breakdown of what’s happening inside your dog’s mind and
In general, leaving the house can cause separation anxiety in dogs. Research suggests that eight out of 10 dogs find it hard to cope when left alone.
Dogs are social pack animals. Therefore, they become upset and stressed when they are separated from their human family.

That said, if you frequently leave the house to go to work or school, your dog learns your routine and will expect you to leave and return at a certain time.
Although dogs don't wear watches, they do have their own internal clocks and concept of time.
But remember, if you have adopted a new dog to your family and you leave them alone at home, they may feel confused or abandoned because they are yet to become accustomed to your schedule.
Do dogs know how long you've been gone?
Studies have been conducted on whether dogs can judge how long their owners have been gone, and if they miss their humans more intensely with time.
One experiment in 2011 conducted by Swedish researchers placed cameras that recorded how dogs reacted when their humans were away for half an hour, two hours, and four hours.

The experiment showed that dogs greeted their owners with greater excitement when their humans left them alone for two hours as opposed to just half an hour, which suggests that dogs can, indeed, tell the difference between these times.
However, dogs did not react differently when their humans were gone for two hours versus four hours.
What this tells us is that dogs feel time differently to us. While your dogs do have some concept of longer versus shorter time spans, they won't understand exactly how long you were away.
What Do Dogs Think About All Day?
Have you ever wondered what dogs think about?
Scientist believe the way dogs think is probably very different from the way we do.
We humans have many structures that help us interpret the ideas and thoughts we have, but dogs don’t.
For example, dogs do not have "language" because they don't have the Wernicke, a language processing center in their brain, so they cannot comprehend language.
The small amount of scientific research out there on dogs’ brains leads us to believe that dogs can only think subconsciously. They can draw upon memories to guide future behavior, however they do not come up with their own thoughts or ideas about a situation.
Therefore, when your dog is chilling out, they are not thinking about anything in particular.
What Do Dogs Think About When They Stare?
It all depends on what the dog is staring at.
If your dog is staring at another dog, they might not be thinking. Instead, they are staring to assert dominance.
If your dog is staring at you, that’s a very different story.
More often than not, dogs watch you to understand what you’re doing.
Dogs also stare at our eyes to express love
Do dogs know that we are not dogs?
Even though dogs come in a wide variety of body shapes and sizes, dogs can tell instantly whether they’re interacting with another dog or a human.
Studies have found that dogs have a mental category for humans. If they identify a creature as falling in that category, they treat them differently.
Dogs can even differentiate between dogs and non-dog animals, by visual observation. In a 2013 study, researchers at The University of Paris found that dogs were able to separate the images of dogs from non-dogs.
Do dogs really miss us when we are gone?
Scientists gave the dogs five scents. The scent of a familiar and strange human, the scent of a familiar and strange dog, and the dogs’ own scent.
Interestingly, when the dogs smelt the scent of a familiar human, the caudate nucleus of their brains lit up - a region associated with positive expectations and rewards.
Another study published in Behavioral Processes looked at how dogs’ behavior changed around people with different levels of familiarity.
In one of the experiments, scientists put dogs in an unfamiliar room with three human participants - their owner, a familiar person, and a stranger.
When the human participants left the room, scientists observed that the dogs would wait behind a door that THEIR OWNER went through, and not the other humans.
While research is ongoing, combining the knowledge of dogs loving their humans and the studies we have leads to the belief that dogs do in fact miss us when we're gone.
Do dogs get bored?
Dogs are intelligent animals—and, just like any other intelligent animal, dogs need a certain level of stimulation in order to feel engaged. If they go too long without that level of stimulation, boredom is going to kick in.