Dating back to the late 1800s, people have believed that animals can display signs of psychic ability. Their agitated behavior is a way of reacting to oncoming earthquakes and natural disasters. For instance, an 1888 article published in Nature states that, “ponies have been known to prance about their stalls, pheasants scream, and frogs cease croaking suddenly a little before a shock, as if aware of its coming.” Since this article, we have also discovered that both birds and fish also exhibit peculiar behavior about six hours prior to an earthquake. Catfish particularly, are usually very lethargic and apathetic swimmers, begin to swim and jump fiercely and experimenters found that about 80 percent of the time, catfish predicted earthquakes accurat
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake published an interesting book titled; Dogs that Know When Their Owners Come Home. Dr. Sheldrake’s research is mostly concerned with dogs, cats, and the owners who believe that their animals are telepathic. Is this a mere delusion? Wishful thinking caused by doting pet owners, anthropomorphically projected onto their pets? Or is something really happening with our dogs and cats on a seemingly “supernatural” level? Sheldrake took it upon himself to find out.
He focused his experiments on dogs who seemed to know and anticipate the return of their owners by waiting at a door or window without any sensory clues. Dr. Sheldrake videotaped over 100 subjects for a year and a half, varying the times when owners returned and changing the mode of transportation. His experiments yielded very positive results. Now, almost ten years later, Alex Tsakiris is attempting to repeat these experiments and in doing so helping researchers explore this phenomena further and reinvigorate efforts to understand what is going on in these animal’s minds.
Tsakiris believes that there could be a link between telepathic abilities and the phenomenon of a deep love for our pets. “I’m just really amazed that more researchers aren’t digging into this to find out what is going on. Millions of pet owners experience this, but most scientists just look the other way,” states Tsakiris. “One thing I discovered is that pet owners are pretty good judges of their animals – and they know it’s real.” Essentially, we tend to generate a connection with our pets, and then consequently, they do so back with us. And this connection is what Tsakiris believes opens the door to telepathic channels. “I think that says a lot about the kind of connection that we’re able to form with animals we really care deeply about. I think it says a lot about the human conscious too.”
As with any controversial experiment, there are always skeptics. Dr. Richard Wiseman found Sheldrake’s hypothesis hard to swallow. In return, Dr. Sheldrake offered up to Dr. Wiseman the possibility to conduct the experiments himself. For a day and a half Dr. Wiseman watched and videotaped the habits of an alleged telepathic dog. While he did admit that the dog waited by the window prior to the owner’s return, he also made the point of stating that since the dog went to the window at times when the owner did not return as well, that the data was inconclusive. Sheldrake responded by proving with his results that the time spent at the windows and doors just prior to the owner’s return was much longer and focused then their meandering near the windows and doors earlier in the day and night.
Do you find your dog staring at you as you pull into your driveway after a trip to the grocery store? Or does your pooch begin to pace back in forth minutes before your husband surprises you, coming home early from work? It’s possible that your dog may have this innate ability to sense your return!
There is still a vast amount of information unknown to us about the unconscious mind. It is an abyss of information yet to be discovered for both us and our pets….
For the Best that Pet Lifestyle has to offer follow Wendy Diamond on Facebook, Twitter, and right here at AnimalFair.com!