Keith Berben, age 11, of Albany, New York, for his question:

Why do dogs bury bones?

Before people appeared on the earth, naturally all the members of the. dog family were wild. The ancestors of our domesticated dogs had to fend for themselves. They were superb hunters, splendid runners with a lot of endurance. But even so, food was often hard to catch and sometimes even to find. Those wild dogs often went hungry. But they were very intelligent animals    smart enough to solve most of their serious problems. When the hunt was successful, they ate all they could    and hid the left¬overs for later. Food left lying around was stolen by other hungry creatures. So the dogs dug holes and buried it    and came back later for a snack.

The wild dogs who buried reserve food were more likely to survive than those who did not. This clever trick became part of the built in pattern inherited by future generations. It was inherited by our domesticated dogs. Even an elegant poodle likes to bury a bone and dig it up later    though chances are he does not know why.