Why your dog’s always there to welcome you home: He smells how long you’ve been away from him

• Dogs are theorised to have the ability to ‘smell time passing’
• They realise that their owners reappear after their smell reaches a certain level
• Devoted pets then sit by the door waiting for their owners to come home 

Dog owners have long been mystified by their pets’ knack to greet them at the door when they return home from work.

And a family member already inside may notice a pooch hurrying to the door a good quarter of an hour before the person they are waiting for arrives.

But impressive as this trick is, dogs are not psychic, an expert has debunked – they may simply ‘smell time’ as it passes.

Discussed in a recent talk, the theory is that canines have learned the rate at which their owners’ scent fades through the day after they leave the house for work.

When the smell reduces to a certain level – after about nine hours have passed, for instance – their devoted pet realises this is when they normally appear at the door.

The theory is that canines have learned the rate at which their owners’ scent fades through the day after they leave the house for work

Professor Alexandra Horowitz, a highly respected expert in dog cognition from Barnard College in the US, discussed the phenomenon during a talk called For The Love Of Dogs at Toronto Public Library.

She told the audience: ‘It might be that, over the course of the day, the smell of us in our homes, if we’re absent, is actually diminishing.

‘Smells get less strong, so if you’ve made coffee in the morning, you can smell the coffee, then after a little bit of time, this coffee smell is dissipated. So it could be that dogs know when you’re going to come home because the smell of you has reached that weakness that it usually does when you arrive.’

When an owner’s smell reduces to a certain level, their devoted pet realises this is when they normally appear at the door

The theory was tested nearly a decade ago in a BBC series called Inside the Animal Mind.

A dog named Jazz seemed to know when his owner Johnny was coming home, leaping up on to the sofa at around 4.40pm every day as if waiting for him – despite him not coming through the door for about another 20 minutes.

The programme, presented by Chris Packham, showed the dog no longer did this after his owner’s sweaty T-shirt had been wafted around the living room by his partner in the middle of the day.

Johnny’s smell reappeared, which seemed to stop his dog from working out his time of arrival.

Professor Horowitz has said dogs’ ability to link smell and time also helps them to track the direction in which someone has gone from the trail they have left behind.

This is because their most recent footprint smells more strongly than the one laid down seconds earlier.

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