Williams: Intuitive Dogs Article 1

Intuitive Dogs: Is There a Canine Sixth Sense?

by Bryan Williams
[A condensed version of this article appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of High Desert Dog magazine, pp. 49 51.]

Many dog owners have experienced the joy of returning home and seeing their dog eagerly waiting to greet them, sitting happily in the window or jumping excitedly at the door. Some of these dogs seem so eager to greet their owners that they become excited or begin waiting even before their owner has arrived home. In most cases, these dogs are probably responding to their owners daily routine, or have been clued to their owners approach through their keen senses of hearing and smell. However, there are a few dogs that have responded even when their owner returns at non-routine times, and their response often comes when their owner is still some distance away from home, when no sensory clues to the owners approach are apparent.1 One such dog is Jaytee, a male mixed-breed terrier owned by Pamela Smart.2 While away at work, Pam would leave Jaytee with her parents, who lived next door. They began noticing that around the time Pam was expected to come home, Jaytee would often head for their porch to sit and wait for her at the window. At first, they thought Jaytee had become attuned to Pams work schedule. But even after Pam was laid off and her schedule became less predictable, they found that Jaytee still went to the window and waited at the time (unknown to them) she was on her way home. Jaytee often began waiting when Pam was still several miles away, suggesting that he wasnt reacting to her scent or to the sound of her car coming down the street. A very similar kind of behavior has been exhibited by Kane, a male Rhodesian ridgeback owned by Sarah Hamlett.3 Often when Sarah was coming home, her partner Jason Hopwood noticed that Kane would go to their apartment window and stand with his front paws on a low table so that he could watch for her on the street. Like Jaytee, Kane exhibited this behavior even when Sarah returned at irregular times, and when she was still several miles away. Jason couldnt have cued Kane because he usually didnt know when Sarah would be returning, and Sarah often didnt know herself until it was time. Thus, she couldnt have cued Kane before leaving home. On the surface, Jaytee and Kane appear to be exhibiting a kind of canine intuition or sixth sense, and they apparently arent the only ones. Surveys in England and California indicate that many owners have witnessed intuition-like behavior in their own dog.4-6 On average, 48% claimed that their dog seems to know when they are coming home. Sixty-nine percent claimed that their dog seems to know when they are going to leave, becoming agitated even before they show any signs of their intent to leave. Forty-seven percent claimed their dog has responded to their thoughts or to a silent command. This raises certain questions: Is there anything to this phenomenon, or is it all just coincidence, superstition, and wishful thinking? Is there any scientific evidence to support the idea that canine intuition exists? Testing Jaytee and Kane To seriously consider the idea, we have to be as sure as possible that the behavior exhibited by dogs like Jaytee and Kane is not due to ordinary causes. To do this, biologist Rupert Sheldrake conducted a series of field experiments with Jaytee and Kane that were designed to

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take many ordinary causes into account. Some of the more obvious causes, and the way they were controlled for in Sheldrakes experiments, are as follows: Routine Response: Over time, the dogs have gradually become attuned to their owners daily schedules and routines, and are responding accordingly. To control for this, the owners are asked to return home at random times. Sensory Clues: Through their acute senses, the dogs are responding to the subtle sound and/or scent of their owners as they get close to home. This is controlled by having the owners return from locations several miles away, and examining the dogs behavior up until the time the owners get within sensory range. Alternatively, if someone knows when the owner will return, that person may display subtle behavioral changes around that time, which may clue the dogs to their owners impending return (this is sometimes called the Clever Hans effect, named after a German horse that was claimed to exhibit mathematical ability, but was eventually found to be responding only to the subtle behavioral cues given off by people questioning it7). Having no one with the dog know the time clearly prevents this. Multiple Distractions: Rather than their owners return, the dogs behavior is related to their tendency to repeatedly go to the waiting spot throughout the day for ordinary reasons, such as wanting to go outside or to watch people, cats, and other dogs go by. To see if thats the case, detailed logs and/or video recordings of the dogs behavior are checked to see if the dogs really do visit their waiting spots as often throughout the day as when their owners are returning. Selective Memory of Success: In recalling their observations of the dogs behavior, people may only tend to remember the times that the dogs responded correctly, while forgetting the incorrect times. Keeping careful logs or video recording the dogs behavior helps prevent this. In preliminary experiments with Jaytee (1994-1995), Pam traveled to various locations several miles away and returned home at different times, keeping a log of the time she left for home and her arrival time. To make sure that Jaytee wasnt responding to the sound of her car, she sometimes returned by taking a taxi or train, riding a bike, or walking. In each instance, her parents noted the time when Jaytee began waiting for her, while not knowing when she would return. Analysis of the data revealed a close relationship between Pams travel time and Jaytees waiting time at the window (Graph 1).2 From 1995 to 1997, Sheldrake performed additional experiments in which Pam was paged at random times to return home, and Jaytees behavior was video-recorded during three separate periods: the main period of Pams absence, the 10-minute period before she started returning, and the first ten minutes of her return trip. When analyzed, the video showed that Jaytee spent significantly more time at the window during Pams return than at any other period, with odds of about 10,000 to 1 against chance (blue bars in Graph 2).8 At Sheldrakes invitation, an attempt was made in 1995 by psychologist Richard Wiseman and his associates at the University of Hertfordshire to repeat the experiments with Jaytee.9 At first, their results didnt seem promising. But then it was learned that their evaluation of Jaytees behavior was based upon an exaggerated description given in media reports. Instead of waiting at the window, Wisemans team assumed that Jaytees behavior was marked by the first moment he inexplicably went to the window for longer than two minutes. This caused them to focus solely on this moment, and ignore any data collected after it. However, when Sheldrake re-analyzed their data, their results were actually found to be consistent with his own (red bars in Graph 2).10

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Similar videotaped experiments were conducted with Kane in 1998.3 Like Jaytee, the results indicate that Kane spent significantly more time at the window when Sarah was coming home than at any other period, at odds of about 5,000 to 1 against chance. The consistency in their behavior, under similar conditions of control, suggests that the two dogs werent simply responding to multiple distractions, or to other ordinary cues. What Could It Be? If the intriguing results obtained with Jaytee and Kane cannot be adequately explained by ordinary causes, then could it be canine intuition? If so, what is its nature? One possibility is that the sensory range and capability of some (if not all) dogs has been greatly underestimated, probably due to current limits in our understanding of their experience. From this perspective, what may look like intuition is really a poorly understood form of canine sense perception. Another possibility is that some dogs really do possess a kind of sixth sense that allows them to somehow gain awareness of their owners activities at a distance. For several decades, researchers in the field of parapsychology have explored this possibility via experimentation.11 In one such experiment from the 1950s, J. B. Rhine (head of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University) tested the ability of two German Shepherds, Binnie and Tessie, and their handlers to locate empty land mine casings selected at random from a group of five, which had been buried along a sandy beach under 6 to 12 inches of seawater. Although this greatly reduced the likelihood that they would be located by sight or smell, the two dogs were still able to locate the selected casings at odds greater than 1,000 to 1 against chance (Graph 3).12 Many other experiments conducted throughout the 1960s and 1970s seem to provide various degrees of evidence for a possible sixth sense in dogs and other animals11 (readable summaries of them are available in Sheldrakes 1999 book Dogs That Seem to Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home1). Perhaps further research will one day resolve the question of whether canine intuition is simply some unrecognized form of ordinary perception, or whether it is a sixth sense. At the very least, cases of ostensible canine intuition seem to say something personal about the human-dog relationship. Throughout history, dogs have been bred to by humans to be faithful and devoted companions, and the bond that naturally arises out of such a relationship is often very strong and loving. Canine intuition seems to suggest that some aspect of this bond is maintained even at a remote distance. The faithfulness and devotion of the dogs in these cases seems to be reflected in their responsive behavior to their owners, and perhaps the strong bond between dog and owner is one of the things at the heart of this phenomenon. If so, it indeed says something deep about dogs and the owners who love them.

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References
1

R. Sheldrake (1999). Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals. New York: Crown Publishers. 2 R. Sheldrake & P. Smart (1998). A dog that seems to know when his owner is returning: Preliminary investigations. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62, 220 232. 3 R. Sheldrake & P. Smart (2000). Testing a return-anticipating dog, Kane. Anthrozos, 13, 203 212. 4 R. Sheldrake & P. Smart (1997). Psychic pets: A survey in north-west England. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 61, 353 364. 5 R. Sheldrake, C. Lawlor, & J. Turney. (1998). Perceptive pets: A survey in London. Rivista di Biologia (Biology Forum), 92, 57 74. 6 D. J. Brown & R. Sheldrake (1998). Perceptive pets: A survey in north-west California. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62, 396 406. 7 Pfungst, O. (1911). Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. von Osten): A Contribution to Experimental Animal and Human Psychology. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. 8 R. Sheldrake & P. Smart (2000). A dog that seems to know when his owner is coming home: Videotaped experiments and observations. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 14, 233 255. 9 R. Wiseman, M. Smith, & J. Milton (1998). Can animals detect when their owners are returning home? An experimental test of the psychic pet phenomenon. British Journal of Psychology, 89, 453 462. 10 R. Sheldrake (1999). Commentary on a paper by Wiseman, Smith and Milton on the psychic pet phenomenon. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 63, 306 311. 11 D. Dutton & C. Williams (2009). Clever beasts and faithful pets: A critical review of animal psi research. Journal of Parapsychology, 73, 43 70. 12 J. B. Rhine (1971). Location of hidden objects by a man-dog team. Journal of Parapsychology, 35, 18 33.

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80 70

Jaytee's Reaction Time (Minutes)

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Pam Smart's Homeward Travel Time (Minutes)

Graph 1. The times that Jaytee began waiting at the window tended to occur close to the times that Pam left for home, as if he somehow knew she was on her way. Each dot represents an individual test session, and the rising slope of the line shows this relational pattern. Based on data published by Pam and Rupert Sheldrake in 1998.2

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90

Average Time Spent by Jaytee at the Window (%)

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
SheldrakeSmart Wiseman's Team

Pam Absent

Pre-Return

Pam Returning

Graph 2. Amount of time Jaytee spent at the window during each of the three periods examined by Sheldrake (blue bars) and Wisemans team (red bars). Based on reports published by Wisemans team in 1998,9 and Sheldrake and Smart in 2000.8

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50 45 40 35
Hit Rate (%)

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 6/26 to 6/28 7/12 to 8/24

Test Period

9/3 to 9/5

All

Graph 3. Amount of correct responses (hits) obtained by the two German Shepherds, Binnie and Tessie, and their handlers in three tests to locate mine casings hidden on a beach. The fourth bar on the right represents all three tests combined. The horizontal line at 20% represents the amount of hits expected by chance. Based on a report published by Rhine in 1971.12