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6 Weird Things You Didn't Realize

Your Dog Was Hardwired To Do

(From November 2016 Issue)

Written by Lara Rutherford-Morrison

on December 3, 2015 for LIFESTYLE.com

Sometimes I’m convinced that my dog and I speak the same language. She just seems to get what’s going on, and knows exactly how to respond to the situation, whether that means quietly snuggling up to me, running around and making noise, or putting herself to bed — like a little, uncommonly friendly human wearing a fluffy bear costume. But then other days, she acts like a huge weirdo, and I find myself staring at her and wondering, “Are you secretly an alien from another galaxy who can somehow perceive a parallel dimension that’s happening on top of our own? Because that’s the only reason I can think of for why you are growling at nothing at three in the morning.”

Dogs can thank their ancestors for a lot of their weirder behaviors, from circling their beds over and over to rolling in stinky things. Dogs descended from gray wolves who were the first animals domesticated by humans, a process which began at least 15 thousand years ago. The instinctive behaviors that dogs built up over thousands of years to help them survive in the wilderness have lingered in many of our furry companions today, even in pups like mine, whose closest encounter with the “wilderness” is a city park that hasn’t been raked recently. Read on to learn how some of your dog’s weirdest behaviors are hard-wired into his or her brain. It may not make your pooch’s habit of eating rabbit poop any more tolerable, but it might help it make more sense.