Do pets grow bored?

[Sophus]

My fat Shiba Inu lies around the house a lot, doing nothing. Shamefacedly I admit I don't walk him as often as I should. Obviously none of us can invest all of our time in our pets, so I can't help but wonder if our domesticated friends grow bored. Much of the excitement of life, hunting, mating, even raising pups or playing with other dogs, is not an option on a daily basis as it is for wild animals (wolves in this example). Is there any scientific evidence dogs or cats, etc. are capable of feeling this way?

[SSY]

In my personal experience, I think my dog gets bored, if I don't take her out one day, she will become noticeably more animated the next day, and get much more excited about her walk. Also, if she hasn't had any attention from me for a while, she will come up and butt me. Having said that, she is ancient now, so much more sedate than she used to be.

Conclusive? No, but I think it lends support.

Is there any evidence that dogs don't get bored?

[The Black Jester]

Our cat will actually bug us incessantly with meowing when she wants to play.  I take it to mean...she's bored.

[KDbeads]

A bored puppy is a destructive puppy  :crazy:   We go through a lot of rawhides.

[Tank]

Dogs do get bored. Having owned 5 dogs over a period of 26 years I can say that the have moods that are a fair analogue of human boredom. This cn be followed be destructive behaviour or attention seeking behaviour. Dogs do need pack affirmation. They can tolerate almost anything except being ignored. If you give them attention they are generally happy. In one case Daisy simply needed to sit on your lap and get stroked. She wasn't a play dog. Rusty on the other hand was and OCD ball player, she would bring you a tennis ball and if you didn't throw it for her she'd give you the most woebegone look. Humans seem to be under the impression that we train dogs to fetch balls, I am of the opinion that dogs train humans to throw balls  

[karadan]

Most definitely. My old cat used to get very bored so we got another cat (everyone in the house worked full time) in the hope that the furnature would stop getting shredded during the day. They became firm friends and she no longer displayed any of the usual signs of sofa shredding boredom.
Cats and dogs are very social creatures and need constant stimulation just like humans do.

Besides, happy stimulated cats give a heck of a lot of affection back.

[xSilverPhinx]

Is there any reason to suspect that an intelligent animal doesn't get bored when under stimulated? I'd say that yes, they do. They certainly get drepressed, though.

If you don't have enough time to take your dog for a walk, you might want to look into giving it an toy for psychological stimulation - especially the more destructive ones.

[Tank]

[youtube:37ca46mz]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcL6-mjRNk[/youtube:37ca46mz]

[Sophus]

[youtube:2ru2uta5]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcL6-mjRNk[/youtube:2ru2uta5]

:hail:  :hail:  I need to build one of those.

[The Magic Pudding]

I heard something recently about children in a bad orphanage, with little stimulation, displaying the same swaying behaviour as elephants.

[Tank]

I heard something recently about children in a bad orphanage, with little stimulation, displaying the same swaying behaviour as elephants.

This was the case in the Romanian orphanages that existed during the time of Ceaucescu. I spent 10 days in Romania in 1993 in Bucharest helping to renovate a children's cancer hospital. This was after the worst of the orphanages had been found and closed down.

[Amnesiac2389]

I think pets get bored. Mine are stuck in a house and end up sleeping all day...they must be experiencing something close to boredom.

[Tank]

I think pets get bored. Mine are stuck in a house and end up sleeping all day...they must be experiencing something close to boredom.

I would agree with this. My dogs mostly just lie about when not attempting to savage delivery people to death.

[Martin TK]

Absolutely animals get bored, why wouldn't they?  I think that religions have somehow convinced people that animals don't have a soul, therefore, they don't have emotions or thoughts, that they can't experience love or dislike.  I am convinced that they do have emotions, they can be happy, or sad, or bored, or angry, or any number of emotions.  In the field of psychology there have been any number of cognitive psychological studies on animal emotions, particularly among mamals and birds.

Animals can develop neurotic behaviors, as well. Tics and obsessive-compulsive behaviors have been documented in some of the higher order mamals, even in cats and dogs.  My own cats, I have two, become very destructive when not stimulated and have this odd behavior of going to their scratch post when they are called down for something they've done wrong.  They are like toddlers in their behavior.  Animals are very much like humans in their need for routine, as well.  I have a cat, named Scooter, who every night at 10pm, comes to my chair and insists that I go down the hall to bed and rub his belly as he rolls around on the floor.  If I ignore him, he will get in my face, sometimes bite my leg, and just have a fit, until I go down the hall and play with him.  Even if I return to my chair, at 10 pm I HAVE to do this with him every night.  I call it "Flippy Kitty" and he will lay on his side and pull himself along with his front legs while I call him the paralysed kitty.  It's really adorable the way he has me trained.  SMILE

[Tank]

Absolutely animals get bored, why wouldn't they?  I think that religions have somehow convinced people that animals don't have a soul, therefore, they don't have emotions or thoughts, that they can't experience love or dislike.  I am convinced that they do have emotions, they can be happy, or sad, or bored, or angry, or any number of emotions.  In the field of psychology there have been any number of cognitive psychological studies on animal emotions, particularly among mamals and birds.

Animals can develop neurotic behaviors, as well. Tics and obsessive-compulsive behaviors have been documented in some of the higher order mamals, even in cats and dogs.  My own cats, I have two, become very destructive when not stimulated and have this odd behavior of going to their scratch post when they are called down for something they've done wrong.  They are like toddlers in their behavior.  Animals are very much like humans in their need for routine, as well.  I have a cat, named Scooter, who every night at 10pm, comes to my chair and insists that I go down the hall to bed and rub his belly as he rolls around on the floor.  If I ignore him, he will get in my face, sometimes bite my leg, and just have a fit, until I go down the hall and play with him.  Even if I return to my chair, at 10 pm I HAVE to do this with him every night.  I call it "Flippy Kitty" and he will lay on his side and pull himself along with his front legs while I call him the paralysed kitty.  It's really adorable the way he has me trained.  SMILE

Oh yes! My last dog trained hundreds of people to throw her ball for her!