Over the years, animal trainers, pet owners, and naturalists have reported various types of animal discernment indicating that they have telepathic powers. Surprisingly, little research has been done on these phenomena. Biologists have a taboo on "paranormality", and researchers and parapsychologists have focused (with rare exceptions) their attention on humans
According to sample surveys in England and the United States, many pet owners believe that their animals sometimes communicate with them telepathically. On average, 48% of dog owners and a third of cat owners say their pets respond to their thoughts and silent commands. Many horse trainers and riders believe that horses are capable of telepathically understanding their intentions.
Some pets even seem to be able to tell when a particular person is dialing a number before the phone rings. For example, when the phone rang at the home of a prominent professor at the University of California at Berkeley, his wife knew that her husband was on the other end of the line, as Wiskins, their silver tabby cat, rushed to the phone and scraped the machine.
“When I pick up the phone, the cat emits an expressive meow that my husband can hear well in the phone,” she said. - If someone else calls, Vinskins doesn't respond. The cat meowed even when her husband called home from Africa or South America.
Since 1994, with the help of hundreds of animal trainers, herders, blind people with guide dogs, veterinarians and pet owners, I have explored some of these unexplained animal abilities. There are three main categories of seemingly mysterious insight, namely telepathy, sense of direction, and apprehension.
Telepathy
A common form of supposedly telepathic response is anticipating the return of its masters; cats disappear when their owners are about to take them to the vet, dogs know when their owners are planning to take them for a walk, and animals freak out when their owner calls the phone before they even answer the call.
As skeptics rightly point out, some of these responses can be attributed to common expectations, subtle sensory cues, coincidences, and selective memory or the imagination of caring pet owners. These are reasonable hypotheses, but they should not be accepted in the absence of any evidence. Experiments are needed to test these possibilities.
My colleagues and I have focused on studying the ability of dogs to know when their owners are coming home. Many pet owners report that their pets can sense the arrival of a family member often in 10 minutes or more.
Animals usually wait at a door, window or gate. In sample household surveys in England and America, an average of 51% of dog owners and 30% of cat owners said they noticed this behavior.
I watched a Terrier named Jayty, which belongs to Pam Smart from Ramsbatom, near Manchester, England. Pam adopted Jatie from a dog shelter in Manchester in 1989 when he was a puppy and the two developed a close bond.
In 1991, when Pam was working as a secretary at a school in Manchester, she left Jayty with her parents, who noticed that the dog came to the window almost every weekday at 4:30 pm, around which time Pam went home, and the dog waited until the hostess did not come home in about 45 minutes. The girl worked during regular office hours, so the family assumed that Jayty's behavior depended on some sense of timing.
In 1993, Pam quit her job and became unemployed, not tied to any pattern in time. Her parents usually didn't know when she was coming home, but Jayty still had a premonition of her return.
In 1994, Pam read an article about my research and volunteered for an experiment. In over 100 experiments, we videotaped the behavior of Jaytie, who was waiting for Pam.
Jayty reacted not only to the sound of Pam's car or the cars of other family members, he expected her arrival, even if she came by other means of transport: bicycle, train, taxi.
We also conducted experiments in which Pam returned home completely unexpectedly, immediately after leaving home. In these experiences, Jayty was still waiting by the window, around the time Pam arrived home, although no one knew she would return.
Evidence shows that Jayty reacted to Pam's intention to return home when she was miles away. Telepathy seems to be the only hypothesis that can explain these facts. All of our published work with Jayty and the other dog Kane can be found on my website.
Alex Tsakiris is currently replicating this study with dogs in the United States. Details of his research are available at www.skeptiko.com.