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Originally Posted by Open Mind  I really don't know how good a dog's natural sense of time is. Nor am I a dog owner but I would question whether dogs can predict how long a owner is away from subtle clues in ways humans can't. |
It is not that human's can't pick up on these cues it's that they normally do not pay attention. If we want to know when somebody is coming back we can phone them or ask them in the morning etc. My friend's three-year old child can recognise all of the characters in the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. I can't. I read the names instead. It all depends on how much time you spend observing and paying attention to small details. The dogs involved appear to spend a large part of their life paying attention to when their owner's come and go. It is thoroughly unsurprising that they can develop skills in predicting what their owners are going to do.
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I doubt a dog can tell 90 minutes from 110 minutes from 120 minutes, etc. that accurately, particularly when snoozing for a period of time in between, as often appears to be the case when owner is away.
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Again this is thoroughly unsurprising. Humans can do this if they want to. It's just that most of us rely on wearing watches etc.
The ability of dogs to judge the passage of time could be tested experimentally. Why not investigate this explicitly rather than assuming that dogs can't do it? The explanations that Sheldrake doesn't investigate tell us a lot about Sheldrake.