Are Pets Psychic?

It’s a fairly common belief that pets are more perceptive to their environment than us human are. I’m sure you’ve heard at least a few stories about pets, or animals in general, who appear to possess some form of extra-sensory perception. Interestingly, from my experience, people are more likely to believe in psychic pets than they are to believe in psychic humans. But what’s the deal with that? If we’re the most advanced species on the planet, why is that pets are able to pickup on things that we –well, most of us– can’t? I’ll render some of my thoughts on that, but first let’s look at some examples of extra-sensory perception in pets (and animals).

Extra-Sensory Perception in Pets

• My friend’s German Shepherd is one of the most perceptive pets I know. Whenever a family member is on their way home, somehow or someway, he knows. No matter where in the house he is, he’ll always run to the door about 5 minutes before the family member pulls in the driveway. After the family picked up on this pattern, they decided to do a little experiment. As soon as the dog made his way to the door, the family member who was home would call the family member who was on their way home to determine their location. It turned out that as soon as they pulled in the community (i.e. their development), the dog would head for the door. Interestingly, it takes 5 literal minutes to drive from the community’s entrance to the house. Therefore, it’s physically impossible for the dog to hear the car making its way home, especially since the dog is partially deaf!
• A very common example is a pet’s sensitivity to ghostly activity. While this example isn’t very approachable from an objective standpoint, it’s certainly ubiquitous. We’ve all heard stories of dogs ferociously barking at “nothing”; however, the thing that really gives this behavior meaning is when some form of paranormal activity happens before, during, or after the barking. I experienced this firsthand with my Golden Retriever, Rocky (photo above). Whenever there was paranormal activity taking place and Rocky was around, he’d bark either before or during the occurrence. What makes this especially compelling, is the fact that Rocky rarely barks –he usually doesn’t even bark at other dogs. So if you add up the unusual barking that’s in sync with the unusual activity, you get a very strong validation (if you’re personally experiencing it, that is).
• Another very common example is the instinctual behavior in animals. I can accept some physical explanations for instinctual behavior, but others could certainly be classified as “psychic phenomena”. In 2004, when the footage of the Indonesian tsunami was televised, some of you may remember something peculiar that happened before the waves started rolling in. What happened was an assemblage of animals swiftly headed for higher ground —before there were any signs of danger. From the human perspective, everything was normal, but for the animals, something catastrophic was about to happen. The animals were undoubtedly picking up on something that the humans couldn’t. This phenomena is similar to the way my cat, Edna, behaves before a powerful storm rumbles in –that is, before you could even see a hint of lightening, or hear the faintest crack of thunder, or feel the first drips of rain. Edna will make her way into the house at least 5 minutes before the first physical sign of a storm.

Trying to Make Sense of a Pet’s Psychic Abilities

Based on my personal experiences, I do believe that pets (and animals in general) are more perceptive to their environment than humans are. Some of their extraordinary senses do have physical explanations. For example, a dog’s sense of smell is a lot more powerful than a human’s sense of smell. This is why police officers frequently use dogs to assist them with detecting and locating people (e.g. missing persons) and things (e.g. drugs, bombs). There are, however, other forms of perception that can’t be attributed to their physical senses (above). But why is extra-sensory perception so prevalent in pets?

No one really knows for sure, but there is one explanation that makes perfect sense (pun intended) to me: the relatively simple lifestyle of a pet. Our pets may live in the same house as us, but they certainly don’t live the same life. Our lives are extremely complex compared to the lives of our pets. We have many different roles, and they have one. We have many responsibilities, and they have none (or maybe just a couple, depending on the pet). Our minds are usually stuck in the past or projected in the future, while their minds are fixed in the present. It really just comes down to the fact that our minds are cluttered, and their minds are clear.

The simplicity and clarity of our pet’s mind is what gives them the intuitive (e.g. psychic) advantage. The best way for humans to increase their intuition is meditation. What are the some of the greatest effects of meditation? Thinking in ‘the now’, and the clearing of the mind –two major intuitive factors that pets naturally possess. And guess what other group is commonly thought of as being very perceptive to their environment… children. This same ‘clear and simple’ logic can be attributed to children, but that’s another post entirely.

Do you have any psychic pet stories? Why do you think pets and other animals are so intuitive?