Have you ever seen a dog focused on nuzzling their expensive treat under a blanket, behind a couch cushion, or into a freshly dug hole in the backyard? You might think they are behaving like a paranoid doomsday prepper, but dogs aren’t stockpiling their food due to anxiety about impending disaster.

Instead, they’re revealing how their evolutionary past still shapes modern behaviours. This forward-thinking strategy offers us a unique window into how we can help them live well.

You might have heard of “caching”, the scientific term for storing food in hidden places for later use. This behaviour is widespread across the animal kingdom, from squirrels, to crows, and wolves.

Caching behaviour generally falls into one of two categories.

One is known as larder hoarding – think of a squirrel stashing nuts in just one or two places to draw from as they get through a long winter.

The other is known as scatter hoarding. It is where animals make smaller caches of surplus food in many different locations, reducing the chance of losing everything to a competitor or going hungry in lean seasons. It’s mostly seen in wild canids such as........

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