Why do dogs bury bones?

I would imagine it’s an instinct from when their ancestors might have buried surplus meat from a hunt to keep it from other “dogs”.

A lot of different animals cache food. It’s a way of keeping food for a later time when it might be more scarce. Certain animals are better than others at remembering where their caches are. And some plants count on the forgetfulness of their predators, because a buried and forgotten fruit or seed will germinate to become a new plant. For the plant, it’s a method of dispersal. That doesn’t so much happen with bones. ;)

Right, they bury things so that they can find them in the future. @hominid has it exactly right. The problem is that, although they still have the bury instinct, dogs don’t appear to have memory as good as it once was. In a my experience, a bone will be buried and never remembered.

Theoretically dogs bury things so they be able to retrieve them in the future. Most forget, but I have know of dogs that had a favorite bone (or bones) they repeatedly buried and dug up.

They are putting their goodies in safe places out of sight of others. I put jewelry in safe places around my house and then I can’t remember where I put it. LOL. I guess my brain took the same evolution route as @elbanditoroso talked about with the dogs. Luckily, I don’t have much jewelry, so there is very little to try to remember.

It’s called caching.

My childhood dog would bury milkbones. I thought it was hilarious. There must have been a hundred out in the yard. I miss that little guy. : (

Burying rawhides after a period of time makes them disgustingly soft and chewy and your dog will dig them up…narf them down and give you a big kiss on the face after they are done eating it. Yum My Sadie has 2 in the ground and a big one in the sand box as I type.

It is about caching surplus food for lean times. Many canids do this as well as the big cats.
I once came accross a cached deer carcass and realzed I had stumbled on a mountain lion cache. Oops…okay big kitty, I am leaving now, never fear I do not want your half rotten deer.
Scared the crap out of me, all alone on a mountain trail, I just know that cat was around somewhere. Eeee…. do not run! lol

Pitch bury’s bones, and bread slices. This early spring has prompted him to retrieve last years dirty bones and bring them inside for a treat.

Sure hope he doesn’t bring the old bread in. I wonder if it’s still there?

Probably for the fun of it.

It’s instinctive behaviour. In the wild, a wolf pack would make one large kill last days, even weeks, and they bury the leftovers to stop it being stolen by scavengers. Dogs retain the instinct even though they get fed every day.

My dog never buried food but used to keep a cache of stolen socks behind the sofa.