Why Do Dogs Bury Bones? The Instinct Behind the Habit

Burying bones and valuable items is a food-caching behavior that dogs inherit from wild ancestors. Wolves and other wild canids bury surplus food to prevent theft by competitors and keep the cache fresh in cooler ground. Domestic dogs retain this impulse even when no food scarcity exists, making bone-burying one of the strongest examples of ancestral behavior persisting into the domestic lifestyle.

The Evolutionary Origin of Caching Behavior

Across the animal world, food caching is common - foxes, corvids, squirrels and numerous other species store provisions for future use. For wild canids, caching fulfills a vital survival role: massive kills yield far more food than one animal can eat at once, burial shields the surplus from scavengers, cooler soil temperatures slow bacterial growth and the cached stores become a reserve through lean times.

One study found that wolves outperformed dogs in finding food caches, likely due to a difference in motivation between wolves and dogs.

Dogs also sometimes try to bury items in inappropriate places, on carpet, under couch cushions, behind furniture, where no functional caching is occurring.

What Dogs Actually Bury

Bones are the canonical example, but dogs bury a wide variety of items. The common thread is perceived high value. Items most frequently cached include:

• Bones (cooked or raw), rawhides and other chews
• Toys, particularly those that have received significant owner attention
• Food items including kibble, treats and human food scraps
• Personal belongings including socks, shoes and clothing that carry owner scent
• Novel items with intense or interesting odors

The burial of owner-scented personal items has a dual explanation: these items may be cached as valued resources, or the behavior may have a comfort function, similar to nesting behavior.

Why Dogs Bury Items Indoors

Dogs unable to dig actual soil may use available alternatives: couch cushions, blankets, laundry piles, under pillows and behind furniture. The dog may go through the full behavioral sequence, sniffing out a location, placing the item, making pawing or pushing motions to simulate covering, even when no actual burial occurs.

Dogs that persistently attempt indoor burial of items can be redirected by providing access to a dedicated digging area outside, a sandbox or a designated garden section where digging is permitted.

When Bone Burial Becomes Excessive

For most dogs, occasional caching is normal and harmless. It becomes a behavioral concern in specific circumstances:

Obsessive caching, where a dog spends large amounts of time attempting to cache, repeatedly retrieving and re-hiding the same item, or becoming highly agitated when unable to cache, can indicate anxiety.

Dogs that cache food and return to eat it later can sometimes be consuming spoiled food (particularly in warm climates or outdoor environments). Monitoring what is being buried and retrieved is important for these dogs.

Dogs that bury items in the garden can cause significant damage to plantings. Management through providing a designated dig zone and removing high-value items after sessions is the most practical solution.

Is It Safe for Dogs to Bury and Chew Bones?

The safety of the underlying item, typically a bone, is the more significant concern for most owners. The ASPCA warns that dogs can sustain injury or obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract when eating bones, which can be serious and require surgery and that raw bones can also carry bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli.

Owners who give bones should supervise all chewing sessions and remove bones after each session to prevent unmonitored caching and retrieval.

For more on related topics, see Why Do Dogs Eat Grass?, Why Do Dogs Lick People?, How Smart Are Dogs?, How to Train a Puppy and Signs of a Healthy Dog.