Dogs are delightful creatures, full of love, loyalty, and baffling quirks. Chief among these is their complete inability to understand the concept of time. My dog greets me with the same boundless enthusiasm whether I’ve popped out to the shop for eight minutes or been gone for eight hours. It’s endearing, hilarious, and sometimes downright confusing. I can’t help but wonder if he genuinely believes I’ve been off battling dragons every time I leave the house.
The moment I step through the door, it’s like I’ve returned from a six-month expedition to the Arctic. My dog sprints to greet me, tail wagging so furiously it could generate enough wind to power a small turbine. Shoes are trampled, bags are sniffed, and I’m subjected to the kind of joyful attention that would make a celebrity blush. The funniest part? All I’ve done is nip out to buy milk or walk to the bins.
Sometimes, I test the theory. I’ll leave the house, walk around the block, and come straight back. Surely he’ll realise I haven’t been gone long. But no. Every single time, he acts like I’ve been away for years, possibly planning an elaborate heist or living it up on a desert island. Does he have no sense of the ticking clock? Or does he simply measure time in moments spent with or without me?
When I return, the full-body sniff inspection begins. His nose gets to work like a highly trained detective trying to decode my absence. “Milk?” his nose seems to say. “Interesting. And why do you smell faintly of the neighbour’s cat? Have you been unfaithful?” No detail is too small for his investigative sniff, even if I’ve only been in the garden. It’s the same routine every time, and it never fails to make me laugh.
It’s not just quick trips that get this response. If I’ve been out for a full workday, he greets me with the same wild enthusiasm: wagging tail, frantic jumping, and that look in his eyes that says, “You’ve been gone forever, but I forgive you.” It’s as if time doesn’t exist for him when I’m not around. Maybe dogs truly live in the moment. Maybe he thinks I was lost at sea and miraculously found my way back home. Whatever the explanation, it’s both absurd and heartwarming.
Every time I pick up my keys, his eyes widen in panic. “You’re not really leaving, are you?” they plead. When the door closes, I imagine him flopping to the floor like a tragic poet lamenting a lost love. But when I return, he’s entirely forgotten the heartbreak. He throws himself into the joy of reunion with complete abandon, tail wagging, tongue out, utterly thrilled by my very existence. It’s a level of emotional whiplash that I, for one, could never manage.
Even if I’m just in the next room, it’s the same story. I’ll disappear into the bathroom or the shed for a moment of peace, only to re-emerge and be greeted like a returning hero. He acts as though I’ve emerged from a vortex or the Bermuda Triangle, rather than simply fetching the washing powder. Dogs clearly don’t grasp spatial awareness any better than they grasp time.
Perhaps that’s the beauty of it. Dogs don’t have clocks, calendars, or alarms. They don’t count the hours or worry about schedules. They exist in two states: “with you” and “tragically without you.” It’s not that my dog has no sense of time—it’s that his priorities are far more straightforward. And while his complete lack of temporal awareness can be hilariously frustrating, it’s also a constant reminder of his unconditional love. Whether I’m gone for eight minutes or eight hours, the joy he shows when I walk through the door is always the same.
Maybe we humans could learn a thing or two from dogs. To live in the moment. To greet our loved ones with more joy. To forget the time spent apart and focus entirely on the time we have together. My dog’s sense of time may be completely useless, but his sense of loyalty, love, and enthusiasm is spot on. And really, isn’t that what matters most?
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