When the Dog Knows You’re Coming Home

I got home at 3:47 today, which is 20 minutes earlier than I usually get home. I know this is the case, because I know the time of the meeting I just got canceled. Same as always. Same smell. Same curtains. Same everything. Dog can’t see. My dog runs to the door. His tail is already wagging, eyes bright. He just knows. My dog just knows I got home at 4:10.

I’ve told myself how it’s possible dozens of times. Maybe he hears the car from blocks away. Maybe he just knows the sound of my engine. My husband would have to be talking to him before he leaves work. But he doesn’t know dogs speech.

This happened even though I was in a different car. I’ve also come home at different times. No pattern of any kind. I also return from being out of town for several days at midnight. He just has to be there I guess.

Waiting and ready. He is always ready.

People have studied this in depth. They have tried to back this in dog science. Some dogs have an internal clock system. They are simply just programmed to know when their owners get home.

There are also studies that are still groping for an explanation. Dogs seem to sense their owner is coming home, even when the owner is miles away. Dogs are filmed moving to the door, not when the car starts, but when the meeting ends.

I like being a researcher. I like explanations. However, I have lived with this dog for six years, and I have learned to not fully understand it.

What I do know is this. Every. Single. Day, it doesn’t matter how late it is, how tired I am, how much work I have to do, he waits. And he is not merely there. He is a cheerful sight. He doesn’t hold grudges for my absence. He doesn’t feel resentment for leaving. He is only ready for the next part of the day.

It’s little, but it’s a lot.

We try hard to be known by others. Paying attention to each other takes so much work. It takes effort to prove you care. My dog doesn’t try to impress me. He doesn’t do it to make me feel seen. He jumps to do it without effort. He works for the glory of it. He does it to feel right.

He just knows and he is happy.

Perhaps it is the smell, or the sound, or some divination of a patterned sensitivity we have not named. Perhaps it is even that, something other, that we do not yet have the instruments to measure. I do not know that it is important.

What is important is that I have never arrived at an empty house, even when the house is empty. I never step through that door without being welcomed. And on the difficult days, the lengthy days, the days when I feel like I have sunk away into my own life, there is this: a being who has been monitoring my return, who understands the outline of my arriving home.

He is there. He knew. And that, for now, is enough.