Do dogs experience nostalgia? - eviltoast

For that matter, do any animals other than humans get nostalgic?

  • Shadow@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    I don’t think we have any way to know.

    My dog definitely remembers and gets excited about places when going back after years. Does he think about those places otherwise? Probably not

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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      4 days ago

      I had a dog named Ellie. She had this little whimper moan thing she would do when she wanted something, and you had to go through the The List™ to determine what it was.

      “Is her hungry?”

      “Does her want a to-to” (toy)

      Et cetera.

      She wouldn’t stop her whimper until you said the right item.

      One time I had exhausted The List™ and was just trying random things because the whimpering was getting a little old at this point and I was desperate. So I asked “do you wanna go see the kitty balls?”

      The kitty balls we a collection of stray cats at a Walmart we lived near nearly a decade prior. She had not been to see the kitty balls in at least 8 years.

      She lost her fucking mind. Jumping up and down (not an easy task on an old girl with messed up legs from getting hit by a car), barking, spinning around. I loaded her up in the car and drove two hours so she could stare out the window at stray cats in the back corner of a Walmart parking lot.

      I miss her a lot. And apparently, she missed the kitty balls