I Think My Dog is Psychic

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For some reason, my dog has a burning, passionate hate of the Little White Dog across the street, and announces this every time the LWD leaves its house by lunging at the window and barking furiously for the entire duration of the LWD’s outside jaunt.

What amazes me is that my dog seems to have some sort of advanced radar system that alerts her every time the dog leaves the house. We’ll be downstairs in the library, radio or television on, and suddenly, she’ll bolt to her feet and race upstairs to “tell off” the LWD in no uncertain terms.

I know that dogs have extremely acute hearing, but never once have I heard the LWD bark. (In a casual conversation, our neighbor said that no, the LWD rarely barked at all.) My dog does not run upstairs to check to see if her nemesis has exited the house every time the neighbors open their door, so I’m bemused as to how she seems to * know. * They do not let the dog out on a schedule, nor do they seem to call to the dog while it’s in the yard.

This is not her only talent. About ten minutes before my husband come home from work, and again, the time varies due to the nature of his job, she causally saunters upstairs, and sits in front of the door. Granted, my husband’s workplace is rather close to our home, but far enough away that even the best-hearing dog couldn’t possibly know. Yet she seems to have some advance notice as to when he’s getting ready to come home.

I’m thinking about getting her her own television show, or psychic hotline number.

So, what about you guys? Do your pets ever display any eerie sixth sense?

2

Apart from a supreme ability to always pee in the worst possible spot or at the worst possible time none of my pets exhibit any sort of sixth sense.

3

Don’t discount the hearing. Dogs have much, much better hearing than humans, and they are attuned to their humans sounds in ways we aren’t. So your dog probably is attuned to the sound of your husband’s car and is picking up the sound of that particular car when it is several minutes away from home, when you aren’t aware that your husband is home until the car pulls in the driveway. Just for giggles, have your husband get a ride home some afternoon and see if the dog still catches on; or have him make a long stop somewhere.

And something similar is probably happening with LWD - it may not bark, but it probably makes other noises when it is about to be let outside, or the owner may be making some type of consistent sound, like rattling a leash.

According to a book I have (Petspeak, but Pets Magazine), dogs can hear well at 250 yards what we can just barely hear at 25 yards.

4

Hmm. My kitty Manfred knows when my wife is opening the door to the apt. house. Our apt. door is the first one on the right when you come in, and there is a steady ingress and egress. Manny, however, knows when it’s my wife and will get up and run to our front door about ten seconds before she opens the front door and comes in the apt. house, to greet her when she opens the door to our apt.

5

My dog also does the running and lunging at passers-by, even though they may only be nearing the house. Part of it is great hearing. I am convinced that the other part is due to the early warning dog radar.

There are a lot of dogs in our neighborhood. There are outside dogs 4 houses down from ours on either side. I am pretty sure that my dog hears the other dogs barking. When she hears this, she checks out the activity, which makes it seem like she is hearing the walking dog. In actuality, she is responding to other barking dogs.

6

I recall seeing a special on PBS that said that not only is a dog’s hearing much more acute than ours, but that they can distinguish multiple distinct sounds where we only hear one. They specifically talked about cars and that the engine noise sounds like about 6 distinct sounds to dogs - that’s why they can so easily tell one from another.

7

I saw a thing on TV where they tested a dog’s seeming psychic ability to predict ahead of time when its owner would be home. Even under controlled (presumably…this is TV we’re talking about) tests the dog succeeded in predicting it owners arrival minutes ahead of time. They also did another test but I forget what it was about. I mentionit becuase to ensure the test was real they shipped the dog’s owner from Great Britain to the US to perform the test some several thousand miles away. Whatever it was the dog passed again.

My cat seems to haev a decidedly weird sixth sense. She is ordinarily a rather standoffish sort who keeps to herself. Still, she wants the occasional cuddle as long as it is on her terms. Somehow, someway, she ALWAYS manages to pick a cuddle time two minutes before whatever it is I’m cooking is done so I feel bad having to them remove the cat from my lap shortly after she arrives to take care of the soon to be burning food.

Kidjanot…it’s really strange and not precisely cosnsistent with two minutes (give or take a minute or two) and not consistent with my actions (sometimes I know the food is nearly done and other times I have almost forgotten about it). Doesn’t matter what I cook or how long it takes either. She shows roughly two minutes before it’s ready.

Now I just need to figure how to sell this amazing ability!

8

Ever notice how they go ballistic when a UPS truck goes by? Apparently the transmission on these trucks emmits a high pitch squeal that we can’t hear but that drives Spot wild.

9

This is discussed in the book “Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals,” by Rupert Sheldrake. Interesting book:

http://tinyurl.com/4pc8

10

In my case, I was probably noticing the “hits” and ignoring the “misses”. I worked in a pet store for a long time, and would buy a new dog toy when it came in if I thought it was something my dog would enjoy. He’d go through his usual routine of excitement at me coming home, going pee outside, and then back into the house to settle down. On the occasions I’d bring a toy home, he’d go through the excitement stage but rather than going outside to pee, he’d continue standing there looking at me. Sometimes I’d have the toy hidden behind my back, but there were a few times I had forgotten the toy in the car. I would have sworn he knew the days I had brought him something, whether I had remembered it myself or not.

11

Entirely possible, because his workplace is less than 1/4 mile away, but I can’t imagine she can hear THAT far, especially given that there’s a highway in front of our house, and many cars are going in and out of his parking lot.

But that still doesn’t explaihn certain oddities, such as the time he called me to see if I needed him to pick up anything from the store on the way home. “I’m just about ready to leave,” he said.

“I know,” I replied. When he asked how, I said, “Because the dog is sitting by the door.” Weird.

12

My dog, an 88 pound yellow lab, is physic.

Whilst in the middle of deep heavy REM sleep in the deepest part of night, whilst enjoying a nice dream of penguins or Antonio Banderas, in the middle of everything, up saunters in *my dream * Murphy.

Who will then proceed to say to me, " I gotta pee."

“Right now?! My dream is just getting interesting.”

" Now." she says. " I drank from the toilet when you weren’t looking."

and I roll over to see my dog, right there nose just inches from my just turned face.

I cannot tell you how many times this has happened.

And, when I am wasting time on line, late at night, she will whine in the doorway of my office. Thinking she has to pee, we trot down stairs and let her out. Only she proceeds to turn immediately around and sit before the door and stare in. *Every freaking time. *

So, I let her in, we trot upstairs, I get back to wasting my time online and …she starts whining. Trot down stairs. Let her out. She *just sits there *. Let her in, go back up stairs. Get back on line. She whines.

Murphy wants to go to bed. And won’t crawl into my side of the bed no matter all the "It’s ok, I’ll crawl in later… c’mon, you can have your spot, "

So, I have to log off and go to bed because my dog has to have me settled in before she settles in.

She is an excellent foot warmer and body pillow.

13

I can’t comment on the OP, but for the getting ready to leave and other apparently psychic occurances, it has to be remembered that dogs are extremely observant of repeated behavior and routine.

There are things like the way a person’s stride changes, little rituals like checking to make sure the coffee pot is off or the bedroom door is closed etc. that the dog learns to associate with the person’s actions. It’s unintentional conditioning and nothing more.

Of course, that doesn’t explain why when I’m depressed Bitz the WonderMutt literally mugs me and won’t allow me to stop playing with her until my mood brightens and I’m laughing. I’ve tried faking it a couple of times. She can tell the difference. I understand that she can tell when I’m depressed; what I don’t get is how she instinctively twigged on her particular course of treatment. You haven’t lived until you’ve had 100 lbs of muscular mutt start boxing you to tell you to start playing.

14

It happened again this afternoon! Psychic Dog in action!

While I was downstairs watching TV, dog sleeping on the sofa, she suddenly lept to her feet, and raced up the stairs, barking franticly. I followed her, hoping for the UPS man, but instead, it was a cat sitting on the sidewalk! This from the dog that “can’t hear” me when I holler at her to come inside.

15

My parents have a golden retriever who knows when he’s going to get taken for a walk. And I mean, he knows it. Take, for example, me sitting at the dining table, calmly drinking some coffee. I’ll think to myself, without doing anything outward, “I think I’ll take Hobbes for a walk.”

Hobbes scrambles to his feet and stares intently at me, and when I get up to rinse out my coffee cup, he does his pre-walk routine (namely, checking in on how long it’s taking me to get ready to go, and knocking his nose on the doorknob–that’s his signal to open the door).

Happens every time. Happens to my Mom when she’s upstairs, out of Hobbes’ sight. Pretty cool stuff.

16

That’s not psychic…she just has you trained well.

Don’t worry…happens to all dog owners. I could list a pile of things my dog has trained me to do. Some may think she is dumb because she doesn’t have a litany of tricks she’ll perform on command but I think she is actually very clever and I’m the dumb one.

17

But I don’t remember going to any Human Obediance School…