Dog Time is the Real Time

 Yes, dogs naturally shift their behavior based on seasonal light changes, regardless of what the clock on your wall says.

As we move deeper into autumn and winter, the shortening daylight hours trigger your dog’s natural instincts. You will likely notice two distinct changes in his routine:

1. He will want to sleep in later

Dogs are heavily influenced by morning twilight and the rising sun.

• The light cue: In the summer, the sun rises early, which naturally wakes your dog up and makes him eager for his 7:30 a.m. walk.
• The winter shift: In the winter, dawn arrives much later. Because it stays dark and cold longer, your dog’s body will naturally want to stay curled up in bed. He will naturally start pacing his morning energy later into the day to match the actual sunrise.

2. He will want to go to bed earlier

Just like morning light wakes them up, the onset of darkness triggers a dog's body to wind down.

• The evening cue: When the sun sets significantly earlier in the late autumn, your dog's brain will begin producing melatonin (the sleep hormone) much earlier in the evening.
• The winter shift: You will likely notice him slowing down, asking for his final evening bathroom break earlier, and settling into his dog bed for the night long before your usual bedtime.

Summary

Even if humans never touched the clocks, your dog's routine would naturally stretch and compress with the seasons. He will naturally want to sleep in later and go to bed earlier simply because the winter days are shorter.

Would you like some ideas on indoor mental games or puzzles to keep your dog entertained during those long, dark winter evenings when he is awake but it's too dark to go outside?

Yes, that is exactly right. Changing the clocks actually helps align human time closer to your dog's natural seasonal biorhythms.

By "falling back" to Standard Time in November, we move the clock backward by one hour. This adjustment achieves two things that match your dog's natural instincts:

• Sunlight alignment: It suddenly makes the sun rise an hour "earlier" on the clock. Since your dog naturally wants to wake up with the morning twilight, moving your 7:30 a.m. walk to the new standard time actually places your walk closer to the actual sunrise.
• Evening alignment: It causes the sun to set an hour "earlier" on the clock. Because your dog's body naturally winds down when it gets dark, the time change matches his desire to eat dinner and go to bed at an earlier clock hour.

If we didn't change the clocks and stayed on Daylight Saving Time all winter, the sun wouldn't rise until around 8:30 a.m. in many areas. Your dog's biological clock would tell him to sleep in, but you would be forcing him out of bed for a 7:30 a.m. walk in the freezing, pitch-black darkness.

By changing the clocks, we are essentially adjusting our human schedules to match the sun, which is exactly what your dog does naturally.

Would you like to know the exact sunrise and sunset times for your area on November 2nd so you can see exactly how the light will line up with your new walk time?