Dogs and the paranormal have always had a mysterious relationship with each other. While there is absolutely no doubt that dogs have extrasensory perception far more developed than that of humans, it is still open to debate whether dogs can actually see or sense ghosts of humans and other animals. The senses of dogs are highly attuned and they perceive the world differently from humans. In this article, I am using the word ‘paranormal’ not just in the context of whether dogs can see spirits but also whether dogs can sense things about/from a living person and can sense impending natural disasters or even accidents.
There is quite a lot of evidence though from dog owners that their dogs can sense the paranormal world.
Many dog owners have reported the following :
– their dog barks at something invisible in the room. It stands and looks up and growls or barks even when there is nobody there.
– while taking the dog out for a walk, the dog almost always avoids a particular spot or becomes aggressive at that spot. Its behavior changes and it may become aggressive or very fearful and may refuse to move on unless dragged by its parent. Many dog owners feel that dogs are sensitive to spots or areas where a death has taken place or a corpse has been found. Perhaps they can see or sense the spirit of the dead person.
– Studies have shown that dogs can sense when their owners leave for home from office even when the office is very far away from home. The experiment includes observing the change in the dog’s behavior as soon as the owner steps out of the office for his home. The dog becomes happy and excited as it knows its parent is on the way.
– I know of a case where a couple had a guest for a business deal. Their otherwise quiet well behaved dog became aggressive and continued to bark at the guest. It was clear it did not like the guest at all. Later on, it was revealed that the guest was actually quite a crooked character and had intended to cheat the couple through this deal. The couple was lucky to have such a dog.
– In the 2009 book Tails of the Afterlife,” by Peggy Schmidt, cites many instances of unexplainable actions by dogs who apparently interact with the invisible realm. One case is of a woman named Del Johnsen who left seven dogs and six cats when she passed away. Numerous witnesses believe she still visits her pets daily, and report seeing the animals suddenly gather in one spot, cats arching their backs and purring, dogs flopping over for a belly rub, wriggling in enjoyment, all of them sitting at attention and staring into the air before resuming their own activities. And Schmidt says her own Jack Russell terrier Pixie has repeatedly reacted to ghosts present in local buildings rumored to be haunted. There are many books on dogs and the paranormal.
– In one instance a dog who never howls started to howl nonstop and continued to howl for hours and did not stop till a lady neighbor died.
– many dog owners have said that their pets warn them beforehand if something bad is about to happen such as a death or accident or anything bad. In these cases, the dog whimpers, whines or hides in a safe place, behaves erratically or becomes extra energetic.
As far as senses are concerned, the following points out how dogs are superior to humans and why they perceive the paranormal far better than humans:
– Highly developed sense of smell. They possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to about six million in humans. Dogs are well known for detecting diseases like cancer in humans. They can even sense epilepsy attacks in their owners and warn them beforehand so as to prevent physical injury.
– Dogs can see some frequencies of light that humans cannot. They can see some of the ultraviolet spectrum that humans cannot and so can see many things that are invisible to humans.
– Besides the sense of smell, dogs have a sense of sound far superior to that of humans (high pitched sounds). They can hear sounds that humans cannot. The average adult human cannot hear sounds above 20000 hertz but dogs can hear sounds up to 40000 to 65000 hertz. At high frequencies, dogs can detect much softer sounds than humans can. A dog’s ears have such high sensitivity to sounds above 12000 hertz that it is pointless to compare it with that of humans.
– Unlike humans, dogs do not judge. They simply see or hear or smell and like humans do not interpret anything through the prism of their prejudices, opinions, likes, and dislikes. Hence in a way, they see the truth better than humans.
– Mentally ill patients (and even those who have suffered a traumatic incident such as an accident or a sexual assault, etc.) who suffer from hallucinations find great comfort in a service dog who is trained to calm them. If a person is having a hallucination that someone is standing at the door with a pistol and wants to kill him, the service dog can go and check and let the patient know that there is actually no one there and this can greatly calm the patient.
To sum up, perhaps more research is needed to say definitively whether dogs can see ghosts. However, the paranormal experiences of dog owners cannot be outright dismissed. I totally believe that dogs can sense negative energies and other frequencies. If I were to on a house-hunting trip with my dog and if I found my dog behaving strangely such as barking abnormally and not wanting to enter the house, I for one would not want to live in that house. If my quiet well behaved dog became aggressive toward a person for no reason whatsoever, I would have my doubts about that person’s intentions for me. Lastly, if a dog displays unusual behavior it could also be due to some health reason and perhaps a visit to a vet is needed. Dog owners should not so easily assume that there is always something paranormal at work. Use your own intuition.
The above article has been written by Manish Jaitly
Photo by Jarrod Reed on Unsplash
I am a dog lover and creator of this site. I am also the author of ‘Keep Sleeping Keep Missing- if only you knew’ (available on Amazon, Flipkart, Kobo, Google Store, etc.).
