Do animals get bored?

[cinderelli]

?

[Greedyfly]

My cat seems to quite often and if you ignore him for ong enough he will swipe something from a shelf or something and obliterate it!

[SpecialAgent]

Wild animals dont, as they have to hunt for food, sleep and reproduce. As for pets i'm sure they do. They dont have to hunt for food, and not many get the chance for a 'roll in the hay' so to speak, and they cannot sleep all day. So there is not much more they can do.

[bernardo]

Yes. Dogs yawn. And if you don't interact with them for a while, they will eventually come and whine and whinge and moan and demand to be taken for a walk, etc.

[football]

Cats & dogs 'go off their food' / pine & go stir crazy locked in kennels / cattery. Same as being bored.

[jills]

you just need to see zoo animals kept in inadequate conditions to know that animals get bored. Animals which are used to large territory (eg a polar bear) will often pace back and forth in their encllosure. This repetitive behaviour that is bourne out of boredom.

[smudge]

Yes jills & also very cruel too!

[jills]

don't get me wrong...there are zoos out there that do a great job in keeping endangered species breeding and help with vital research, education and conservation work. But there are equally very bad zoos which thankfully are becoming fewer and fewer in number. To be fair, many zoos simply lacked the funds and information adn imagination to update their care and methods of husbandry/housing.

[woofgang]

weimaraners certainly do get bored which explains their unfair image of being highly strung destroyers of property. We have never had a destruction problem because we have always given our dog 2 walks a day and attention and company at home. I think that the smarter the animal, the more likely they are to get bored

[Hellion]

woofgang, obvious you were a 'woofy' family, nice to know what they are!

[cinderelli]

Tar guys. :)