A secret life of pets – that’s how you can call what happens when you close your door and leave. Are you also interested in what happens after that? There is one easy answer: They sleep. But is that really the case?
What do our furry friends actually do when we’re not home? Are they bored and do they wait sadly in their kennels until they can hear us coming back? We know it’s not always like that and not only thanks to modern technologies, home cameras and computers and sometimes, we are quite surprised. Especially when we come back and find out that our furniture has been moved and the whole interior is “improved”. Guilty expressions then say everything.
This is also the topic of my favourite film called “The Secret Life of Pets” that actually inspired me to write this article. As a proper American blockbuster, the film has a thrilling plot about a lost and found dog, terrier Max, and his friends. However, besides various crazy things the main characters do at home, it does not tell us much about the real secret life of our pets.
Nevertheless, the film started an interesting discussion. We started thinking again if all romping the results of which we get to see later is really so funny or if it is a manifestation of separation anxiety. Not long after the film was in cinemas, a YouTube video called “What my dog does when I leave” went viral. It had one million views in a moment.
The video received a lot of attention probably because of our interest in the secret life of our companions and which was even supported in us by the mentioned new film. A three-minute-long recording is from a GoPro cam which is attached to the dog’s body and it shows how the dog stays in his master’s bed and waits for his arrival after a while of running around the house and howling.
The discussion which followed as a reply to it mainly abroad was maybe a bit too emotional and it was all about the question if it is good to let dogs home alone and how to proceed when an animal reacts badly to a short-term (You can read about separation anxiety and how to react to it in a separate article.)
Also, a few studies from abroad dealt with the topic of what pets do when they are home alone. They confirmed that the daily routine of your pet partially corresponds to its natural cycle it would have as a best of prey in wild nature. An animal needs some activity it can do while waiting for its master instead of hunting (our pets like transplanting plants and teasing paper :)). After hunting, there’s a calm stage, i.e. sleeping.
It looks like our pets’ life will always be at least a partial secret. And it is really a topic which raises a lot of other questions, is passionately discussed and people get emotional about it. The thought I got after this film and viral video is that instead of becoming detectives we should become the best pet owners ever and try to spend as much time with our loves as possible. And that’s why we got them in the first place.
For the end, to make it funny, I picked a few photos that capture our furry friends when “hunting” :).
According to the data published at the end of last year, more than half of the people from around the world lives with at least one pet. The most numerous dog population is in the United States (70 million dogs), followed by Brazil (36 million) and...
When I travel, I'm always interested in what is the view of the given country upon the keeping of pets. And generally, how animals are treated there. The position of cats, dogs and rodents varies significantly in different countries, so there’s...
People often confuse the grey wolf with the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog. This shepherd’s and today a very popular breed was bred from the German Shepherd by crossbreeding with the Carpathian wolf. Even though the dog and the wolf are very similar in...
The golden hamster, sometimes referred to as hamster-teddy bear because of its appearance, was first captured less than a century ago by zoologists in Syria. Hence also its second name – the Syrian hamster. Over time, it became a popular pet throughout...
The cloning of dogs or cats is slowly becoming a completely normal reality. For now, you can encounter it mostly in Asian countries. It’s the companies in South Korea that are most famous for their business plans focusing on the grieving dog and cat...
It would probably entirely unnecessary to describe the appearance of the German Shepherd. Probably everyone, even non-dog-lovers, have seen the German series Inspector Rex. Apart from the most famous colouring with black or golden marks, it is bred...
Getting a cat doesn’t mean only buying a cat toilet, bowls, a bed and a couple of toys. You also have to realise that the animal will also need certain care and count with this already before getting it. Each breed has its own specifics. While some are...
The Persian Longhairs, which have most likely descended from the Turkish Angoras, were bred in England at the end of the 19th century. Since then, they have undergone great changes, and today they have a much more compact body in comparison to the...
The desire for your own dog friend can also lead to a great disappointment. Since a lot of people fall for scammers when buying through an ad. Getting a dog this way is a risk not only from the money point of view, but also with respect to the mental...
Traveling with a dog in the city is stressful for many dog owners. One of the reasons may be the fear of riding escalators. If the dog is not accustomed to them since young age, he can have issue with it as an adult. Even in the case that your dog aces...
For the majority of dog breeders, winter is the period that has to be waited out somehow. But this time of year provides ideal conditions for the musher sport. And if you found pleasure in summer trainings with the dog, don’t hang the dog harness on an...
Most owners consider pets kept at home to be full-fledged family members. And year after year, they invest more and more money in them. Just for dog and cat food, Czechs spend around eight billion crowns a year. The business around pets is experiencing...
