Victoria Gil
Function, BBC, science
If you've ever had trouble with the sudden change in your daily routine due to seasonal "moving the clocks forward" and "moving the clocks back," think of the sled dogs of Ontario, a province in Canada.
Researchers say that changing the clocks is upsetting for working dogs who are used to a strict daily schedule.
When scientists at the University of Toronto attached motion sensors to a group of Canadian sled dogs, they noticed that the morning after the clocks were set back, the animals were active and moving around almost exactly an hour earlier.
In contrast, house dogs of the same breed as working dogs showed no noticeable changes, as they slept peacefully during the extra hour.
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"I didn't expect there to be any differences between the two groups [of dogs]," says Lavanya Nagendran, one of the lead researchers.
"That's why it was interesting to see that the dogs were so in tune with their routine."
The study, published in the journal PLoS One, is part of a larger project investigating differences in the behavior of wolves and domestic dogs.
"Not all animals can just change their schedules based on human influence, [such as changing the clock]," says Ming Fei Li, one of the lead researchers.
She adds that she and her colleagues wanted to find out whether wolves can also adapt their activity patterns, and whether this flexibility evolved naturally in dogs, or was imposed when we domesticated them.
Much of the research on the impact of clock changes on health and sleep has focused on humans.
Previous research suggests that changing the clocks causes sleep disruption or interruptions during sleep, and that this can last up to a week.
Studies have even shown an increase in fatal traffic accidents immediately after moving the clocks forward or backward.
This is the first study to investigate the impact of clock changes on domestic dogs.
Researchers fitted motion-tracking devices to 25 sled dogs and 29 pet dogs, all of whom were in or near Ontario, Canada.
For sled dogs, changing the clocks meant a sudden change in their strict daily schedule.
Before the clocks were turned back, trainers would come to the dog kennels at dawn.
The first morning after turning the clocks back, the sled dogs were awake, active, and moving around an hour before the handlers arrived.
Most of these working dogs only did it for a day.
The very next morning, the dogs had re-aligned most of their activities to the arrival of their trainers.
However, there were no noticeable changes in domestic dogs.
The morning after the clocks went back, their activity was aligned with the new man-imposed schedule.
"When we talked to pet owners, they all said that because of the clock change, their dogs or cats were up in the morning, crazy, waiting to be fed."
"But in our study we didn't see this in pet dogs."
The team conducted the research in 2021, when lockdown measures were in place in Canada due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That's why they posted an ad looking for husky or malamute owners to participate in their remote research.
"The owners were amazing," Lee recalls.
"They asked us questions, put tracking devices on their dogs' collars that we mailed to them, and most of them kept really good notes."
The researchers say their "main finding" is that it may be beneficial for working dogs to gradually introduce them to a change in schedule.
Because, although you can teach an old dog a new routine, such a sudden change during the night can be unsettling for them.
Unless, of course, it's a pet dog with no working responsibilities and that has an extremely comfortable bed to sleep in.
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