Why do dog bury bones?

When I was a young boy I had an extreme fear of dogs. So my parents bought me a small dog. It was black and white and ever so naughty. But it one sin which in the end brought about his departure was his penchant for burying bones. Why did my dog bury his bones? Why do dogs all over the world bury their bones? Well it all goes back to the time before dogs became so integrated into human life. When dogs live in the wild they have to hunt for the food which they eat and from which they feed their young. It is one thing for a dog or group of dogs to hunt and kill an animal for food but what if the animal is too large to eat in one sitting. Or what if you want to take food back to the den so you can eat it later. Well if you were to leave food out in the wild for any length of time you would discover what I mean. There are innumerable scavengers just waiting for someone to drop or leave unattended some tasty morsel. So the dogs learned to hide their food. This instinct has been passed down from generation to generation. Now however as most dogs live in urban settings with yards or parks as their domain the habit of a dog burying its bones is very problematic. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article my first dog would faithfully take some of his meal and find a nice clean pretty patch of grass and proceed to dig it up. Then he would stick his morsel of food in the hole and cover it back up again. The problem was that he never could seem to cover the hole back up quite as nicely as the way it was before he started digging. So we had these dirt mounds all over our back yard with food rotting in them. As you recall the reason why a dog bury would bury his bone was to allow him to eat it later. But nowadays most dog owners take great care in assuring that their dog is not hungry so not only does the buried bone cause an unsightly mess but the food inside often doesn't get eaten.

There are methods for helping dogs to overcome this habit if it is becoming a problem. In general dogs that bury bones just need more attention and love to help them overcome this habit.