How dog memory works

Zoey Elizabeth

Text from Cesar's Way

By Josh Weiss-Roessler

You know that your dog remembers who you are because she greets you with such excitement every day when you get home from work.

But what about other things? Does your dog remember the walk you took her on yesterday? Or what about the bone you gave her last night?

Unfortunately, dogs don’t have much of a short-term memory. In fact, a Swedish study found that dogs forget something within two minutes of it happening. So that tasty treat you gave your dog an hour ago? He doesn’t remember it. He also doesn't remember this morning's walk and the bone from the other day.

But your dog does have the ability to remember things — he just does it in a different way.

Types of memory 

Humans retain vivid personal memories due to our episodic memory. Episodic memory allows us to remember things that have happened to us at specific times and places throughout our life. Our episodic memory lets us travel back in time — figuratively, in our mind — and remember an event.

Dogs, on the other hand, don’t have an episodic memory. Instead, they have an associative memory. With an associative memory, dogs remember things based on their associations as opposed to their actual memories.

Let’s look at an example. 

The magic hat and the menacing vacuum

If you regularly put on your favorite baseball cap before you take your dog to the park, your dog will get excited any time you take out that hat. The dog associates the hat with going to the park. This association will last unless you create a new association with the cap.

If you planned to take your dog to the park and you didn’t pull out the cap, or his leash, or something that reminds him of going to the park, then your dog probably won’t be that excited.

Dogs can also have negative associations. What happens when you take out the vacuum to clean your house? Your dog may run away scared.

The first time your dog encountered the vacuum, she probably sniffed it, curious about the strange item. However, once you turned the vacuum on, the incredibly loud sound most likely frightened your pup and caused her to panic and get as far away from the vacuum as possible. Your dog will always be scared of the vacuum due to her association of the vacuum with loud, scary noises — unless, of course, you take steps to create new positive associations.

Dogs and other animals have this type of memory because it helps them to survive in the wild. The first time an animal attempts to eat a porcupine for food will also be the last time after they get poked with quills. Animals will remember that danger and look for another food source next time. These types of associations are necessary to their survival.

Change the association
We can also attempt to change these associations if we need to. Maybe your dog used to love riding in the car until one day she had a bad experience at the vet. Now your dog is reluctant to get in the car and go anywhere.

If you can change the association with the car to something happier, then your dog might not be so scared anymore. One common method for dealing with a car-phobic dog is to get in the back seat with the dog and her favorite toy, without the car being on, then spending time playing with her. Repeat this for five to ten minutes at a time until she seems to be over her reluctance to hop in, then go for a drive to some place she likes, such as her favorite dog park.

But remember, the stronger the association, the harder it will be to change it.

That’s why Cesar’s philosophy of “living in the moment” is so important for our dogs and for us. Dogs don’t hold onto the past. As we’ve just learned, they quickly forget what just happened to them a few minutes ago. There’s no reason to live anywhere but the present!