Why Do Dogs Bury Bones?
Posted by Ally Cohen on
If you’ve ever given your best canine pal a shiny new bone only to discover him digging a hole in your backyard to place it in, you may have wondered more than once why dogs like to bury bones. The truth is dogs generally eat to the point of satiation and do not like to push themselves further than that. This impulse is based upon instincts instilled in them from their ancestors who existed as wild dogs dependent upon their survival skills to live from day to day. In the wild, food had to be hunted. Since food was often scarce and predators would be only too willing to steal or kill for it, wild dogs quickly learned to bury any food they were not eating right away. In this fashion, the food could safely be kept for another time. The smell was buried deep within the earth, and the cool temperatures of the ground prevented spoilage.
Though your dog has no fear of where his next meal may come from, his primal instincts remain alive in him today. So, when you present your dog with a raw, meaty bone that he places beneath your prize-winning petunias, it’s not that he’s not grateful. He’s just not hungry…right now.