our little 12-year-old Boston terrier Abby who is completely blind now from cataracts is quiet until 6 am for breakfast, then 11:45 am for lunch and then 5 pm for supper. At those times, she barks nonstop until she hears her dish go clunk on the floor as a signal her food is ready. Then she makes a beeline for it and starts chowing down. We don't know how she can possibly tell the time. Our vet says Abby can't even see light any more.

Poor Abby. We'd looked into cataract surgery for her, but because of her glaucoma and also her age, the vet advised against it.

I just figured she had the alarm set on her iphone.

It may be a clock chime or some other noise in your area that occurs at 5 every day. It may be something only your dogs can hear.

Is there some TV show that you (or a neighbor) have on every day at 5 that has a recognizable theme?

A factory whistle? A school bell? A train that passes at the same time every day?

Seriously. If you have an analog clock on the wall, maybe they've been conditioned to expect dinner when the hands are in a specific position.

Do they adjust their behavior when the clocks are adjusted in the spring and fall?

I thought she was a friggin' genius because every day at 5 PM, she would rouse from her nap and come into the kitchen to stare at me while she waited by her bowl. Well, clearly she could read a clock because even with the time changing twice a year, she was promptly ready to eat at 5! Ah-mazing!

Took a year or two for me to finally realize that at 5 PM every day, my Audubon Clock's hands would move to "Canada Goose" and we were treated to the sound of a goose.

She's been gone for years but we still refer to 5 PM as Goose O'Clock.

When we tell him "15 minutes" he looks all dejected and lays down.

My dog gets a little antsy around dinner time but not as bad.

Yep. My Airedale can tell time. She knows dinner time and mail man time.

Years ago when a neighbor down the road had beef cattle, we could hear them mooing at 5:30 PM every afternoon, waiting to be fed.

Our horses will gather at the gates when it's time to be fed - if we keep a consistent schedule. I read a study years ago that said that horses that were fed on a strict schedule were more stressed than horses fed on an erratic schedule. The researchers suspected that with a strict schedule the animals built up tension as their feeding time approached while the horses that never knew exactly what time they would be fed were just happy to be fed at all. They measured the stress levels with blood tests, not behavior.

When I boarded other people's horses I had to feed on a regular schedule so the owners knew when they could come out to work their horses. Since we stopped boarding our horses are fed whenever we (or the people running the farm now) get around to doing it. They get excited when anyone goes to the barn and only get stressed when we go over there for something else and don't feed them.

if our food offerings are insufficient or late.

too. It is very confusing when we spring forward & fall back because they don't understand why I am changing things on them.

They're just attuned. I think most animals are.

We probably had the talent and lost it.

4:55 everyday without fail, no matter if they were in the front or the back pasture. For the morning feed we would fill their feeders at 8:00 and they would come in from the pasture whenever they felt like eating. Animals are amazing.

I'm thinking of myself here- I recall in grade school my stomach growled at 11:30 a.m. every day.

Or, maybe they take more notice of the daylight and can tell time by that.

So darn funny!

He would stare at me near feeding time. If no satisfaction there, he would move to my wife

I miss him

Especially the Siamese. He knows exactly when it's 4:15AM, 2 to 2:30PM and will scream bloody murder if supper is later than 5:45PM. When my husband worked regular work hours, our Manx would hang out by the front door to greet him starting about 15 minutes before he usually pulled into the driveway. Our cats get real vocal when the schedule is off.

Do you have any photos of your babies waiting for dinner? Would love to see!

nothing like a cat paw slapping your face at 7am for morning breakfast! I miss my cats

She comes over and nudges and rubs and does all the 'oh I am so glad you are my mom' stuff. Makes me laugh. And yes, i am amazed at her internal time clock. I feed her at 5 in the winter and 6 in the summer to deal with the time change thing -- and feed me, too, smile.

at about the same time - but it wasn't directly related to when the toast and jelly was ready. He would just be lying in another room; and then something happened and he would come to beg for food. I knew there must be some cue, so one day I observed him very carefully. I had already buttered and jellied the toast - but no movement yet on his part. Now, the last thing I do before I eat is pour my coffee; and when I pour my coffee, I always put an ice cube in the coffee to cool it off a bit so I don't burn my tongue. I don't let the ice cube melt all the way. When it is about 3/4 melted I take a teaspoon and fish out the rest of the ice and throw it in the sink. Then I crack open the dishwasher, and drop the spoon into the utensil basket, whereupon it makes a clink. That was it. At the moment of the clink, the dog knew it was time to get up and come to the kitchen to beg for toast and jelly!

They watch and study us everyday and we are creatures of habit and very predictable.

My perfect new friend would be a Doberman. They are phenomenally intelligent, and they can drag you on a bike, roller blades or just hauling things for days. I had a Doberman that did just that for 10 years.

Second one would be a German Shepherd. The can also haul you along, but they are a bit too strong I would think for rollerblading.

You are lucky to have such great dogs.

I can't say I'm not blessed, I have a big fat tabby in my lap as I type

Majik cat & Mama Mojo know when B-fast time is. Princess Peanut is more relaxed, cuz she will nibble (as the cats do on her feed as well as well).

Strangely, the mornings are in flex. He's not so concerned. And my cat wants his breakfast & dinner @ 7am & 9pm. Animals make me laugh.

Recent study explains that dogs use smell as a time clock. Because of your general routine, you, your home, and the general atmosphere smell slightly different minute to minute. At 5:00, smell triggers expectations of dinner.

I sometimes work from home and I watch my dog. My husband comes home around the same time, as do my kids. My dog will wake from a dead sleep 5 minutes prior to the entrance of an expected family member and stake out the front door.

When we upset her routine with sleep away camp or business trips, she goes into a serious funk.

Now that my son has left for freshman year of college, I'm considering asking the Vet about doggie anti-depressants. I've never seen her so mopey.

Have your son send you a dirty t-shirt with his scent on it, that he could afford to lose. Give it to the dog, see if she perks up.

He's playing a sport, so I imagine producing a smelly shirt will be easy.

The dog would go and sit by the sliding glass door every day at 5pm, waiting for my dad to come home from work.

She starts a little before 3 PM. Feeding time is between 4-5PM.

that's when she gets her wet food. time change doesn't matter, she sits on the coffee table around 855 and just stares at him. she also raises a ruckus if breakfast isn't served by 9.

our late fat cat and our new chunky boy learned that the first alarm means breakfast and second means (smaller) second breakfast.

Dinner is her favorite meal of the day. I can be anywhere in the house and she shows up at 5:20! Daylight saving time changes alter the time a bit but she always settles into 5:20.
Good question - how do they know?

us is on the computer, she jumps up with her front legs on the front of the desk chair and pushes the chair back from the desk (it's on wheels). The time change twice a year doesn't matter either, she knows when it is 5 p.m. even when the clocks have changed. It really is quite amazing!

in fact she now has the neighbors trained, so that at 4:45 pm they must slip a cookie through the fence, or else she'll bark at their house until they come out and do so.

They do it by smell. The dog tracks time by following how your smell deteriorates during the day.

Dogs' sense of smell is obviously a main way of processing the world. Just like sight is ours. Dogs will run around sniffing the ground where other dogs go, and they'll ignore 'yesterday's scents' very quickly. They'll stop and linger on new scents, getting who knows what kind of information from them. Males sniff each others' butts, something my son said was the equivalent of our internet information. Most females I've seen won't let male dogs sniff them but they'll let females sniff.

His first owner thought feeding him was optional and he never really got that he would get his next meal, plus he associated food with love. But he wasn't picky. The trash, the compost heap, the random deer leg he found, the frozen dove carcass (I maintain he had heard us talking about Dove ice cream bars and got confused).

He went from being a really scrawny husky to being a very husky husky.

My parents currently have two dogs, who generally aren't overjoyed about getting their food, but one of them will sit next to you while you eat breakfast and have long strings of slobber hanging from his mouth.