Dogs Hiding Bones

Dogs commonly hide their food due to a variety of behaviors and environmental triggers. A combination of all of these issues can contribute to how often or why a seemingly happy dog starts hiding its food. While many owners automatically attribute the behaviors of hiding with a health or behavior problem, it is simply untrue.

Why Do Dogs Hide Their Bones?

It may seem strange for a domesticated dog with an abundance of food to spend time burying a bone in the backyard, but, in fact, this habit is grounded in millions of years of survival instinct. To understand why a dog will bury or hide a bone, their survival history must be examined.

How Dogs Know Where They Buried Their Bones

All canines, like wolves, foxes and domestic dogs bury food in order to have a larder to go back to in lean times. But mostly, it helps keep the food away from birds like crows or ravens, which hunt by sight. Canines tend to use a visual marker in order to pick a spot to bury the bone. This makes finding the burial spot easier. A visual marker can be anything conspicuous like a tree, rock or fence. Even using these markers, dogs can still sometimes forget where the bone is.