After springing ahead an hour with daylight-saving time in the spring, at 2 a.m. Nov. 3, we “fall back” an hour so we — and our pets — gain an hour of sleep that night.
Daylight-saving time is a system used by many countries to extend the amount of daylight in the evening by moving the clocks forward by one hour in the spring and back by one hour in the fall.
About a quarter of the world’s population will gain sleep and lose sunlight as they set their clocks back from daylight-saving time.
Benjamin Franklin is credited with coming up with the idea of daylight-saving time in 1784 to conserve candles, but the United States did not institute it until World War I, to conserve energy. Now more than one hundred years later it is still in effect.
How does DST affect our dogs and cats? Just as we must adjust to losing an hour or gaining an hour of sleep, this time shift can also disrupt our pets’ daily routine, eating schedules and sleep patterns.
All animals, including humans, have 24-hour internal clocks that tell them when to eat, sleep and wake up. This is a circadian rhythm, and it is set in motion in nature by sunlight.
For dogs, however, this effect is lessened by the artificial environment many of them live in. Their sunrise may be you flipping on a light switch in the morning.
The National Institute of General Medical Sciences explains that circadian rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. They affect most living life forms, including our dogs, cats, plants and even microbes.
We set up our dogs’ daily routines when they get up in the morning, eat breakfast and dinner, exercise and go to bed.
Does our dog have a concept of time passing? Various research groups say no, but our dogs may live in the moment.
They know when it is dinner time and time for a walk. They know when to expect you home from work, but they will never call you late.
“Dogs respond to daylight, and they wake when the sun rises and sleep when it’s dark,” said Dr. Jerry Klein, chief veterinary officer for the American Kennel Club.
Their physical and behavioral processes are in sync with the sun. They are creatures of habit.
For dogs and cats, circadian rhythms are believed to be crepuscular, which means they are most active at dawn and dusk but they can also adjust to different sleep schedules.
Dogs typically follow our sleep patterns, sleeping at night and remaining awake during the day (diurnal), while outdoor cats tend to be crepuscular and indoor cats tend to follow their owner’s schedule.
So, most time when we go to bed, our dog or cat jumps onto our bed or into theirs. When the alarm goes off, we all get up.
Suddenly setting back or moving forward our clocks in the fall and spring can unsettle and confuse our dogs and cats because, from one day to the next, we have made a change in their routines.
Your pals’ eating schedule and walking schedule may change and this may make it stressed. Stress can manifest by destructive behavior, increased sleeping, inappropriate urination or defecation in the house, or being very clingy to their owners.
In most states, except for Arizona and Hawai‘i, the clocks in autumn fall back an hour. So, there are more drivers on the road after sunset.
It has been found that most car crashes involving deer occurred between sunset and sunrise.
But these crashes were most common at dusk. They occurred 14 times more frequently in the two hours after sunset than in the two hours before sunset.
As it stands now, nearly 10% of all deer-vehicle crashes occur in the two weeks surrounding the time change in the fall, when some deer are up to 50% more active because of their mating season.
This shift from daylight saving time to standard time in November has been linked to car crashes that kill more than 30 people and nearly 37,000 deer each year in the United States, according to a study in the journal Current Biology.
When DST was introduced 240 years ago, more daylight was a good thing because it meant less use of artificial light and more energy savings. Today, computers, TV screens, all electronics and air conditioning units use more energy, no matter if the sun is up.
Today, the amount of energy saved from DST is insignificant (according to Time and Date 2024). So, you and your pals may need a few days to acclimate to the time changes coming this weekend.