Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 62, 396-406 (July 1998)
by David Jay Brown and Rupert Sheldrake
Introduction
Many pet owners claim that their animals sometimes exhibit an uncanny "sixth sense". Some believe that they have a telepathic connection with their dog or cat. Anecdotes about "psychic" pets are regularly reported in the media and in popular literature (e.g. Gaddis, 1970; Brown, 1971; Schul, 1977; Bardens, 1987). But these seemingly mysterious phenomena have so far been neglected by scientific researchers. Even parapsychologists have ignored the interactions between people and companion animals, with a few notable exceptions (Rhine, 1951, 1953; Rhine & Feather, 1962; Pratt, 1964).
This survey was carried out as part of a wider investigation into claims about seemingly unexplained abilities of animals (Sheldrake, 1994). Preliminary enquiries among pet owners revealed that many people are convinced that their pets are sometimes uncannily perceptive, and the questions in the survey explored some of the most commonly reported examples of such behaviour, namely the apparent ability of some animals to know in advance when their owner is coming home, to know when their owner is intending to go out, and to respond to their owner's thoughts or silent commands. The format was the same as that of a survey carried out in Greater Manchester (Sheldrake & Smart, 1997) so that the results can be compared directly.
Of course, the fact that some pet owners believe their pets have uncanny powers does not prove that these beliefs are correct. Systematic observations are necessary to establish whether the reported phenomena do in fact occur. And if they do, experimental investigations are necessary to find out whether they are explicable in terms of sensory information, routines or subtle cues, or whether they depend on forms of connection or communication as yet unknown to science. Preliminary investigations suggest that an unknown form of communication may well be involved (Sheldrake & Smart, 1998)
Methods
This survey was conducted by telephone by David Brown (D.B.) in Santa Cruz County, North-West California, in November 1996, and involved 200 randomly-selected households. D.B. lives in that county, and telephoning within the local area helped to minimize the cost of the study.
Households were selected from the Pacific Bell Santa Cruz County 1996 telephone directory (area code 408) using an electronic random number generator to determine the page and column number, as well as its position on the page. Most households surveyed were in and around the university-beach town of Santa Cruz, population 52,700.
D.B. introduced himself as follows: "My name is David Brown. I'm conducting a survey on pets and animals. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?" Approximately 20% of the people reached by phone agreed to take part in the survey. When a cooperative subject was found, D.B. then asked a series of questions and recorded the answers on a standard form as follows.
Name: ______________________________
Tel: ___________________________
Address: ___________________________________________________________
| 1. Do you or anyone in your household own a pet? |
Yes |
No |
2. What type of pet? Species:
| 3. Have you or anyone in your household ever noticed the pet getting agitated before a family member has arrived home? |
Yes |
No |
| 4. How long before you/they arrive is your pet agitated? | |||
| 0-5 mins | 5-10 mins | 10-20 mins | 20 mins or more |
| 5. Would you agree or disagree that your pet
knows you are going out before you show any physical signs of doing so? | |||
| Agree | Disagree | Don't know | |
| 6. Would you agree or disagree that you pet
responds to your own thoughts or silent commands? | |||
| Agree | Disagree | Don't know | |
| 7. Would you agree or disagree that your pet is sometimes telepathic with you? | |||
| Agree | Disagree | Don't know | |
| 8. Would you agree or disagree that any of the pets you have known in the past were telepathic? | |||
| Agree | Disagree | Don't know | |
| 9. How frequently have you yourself had a psychical experience? | |||
| Never | Sometimes | Frequently | |
In cases where respondents currently had no pets (i.e., they answered No to the first question), they were only asked questions 8 and 9.
In cases where households had both dogs and cats, they were included in the totals for both dog and cat owners, as shown in Tables 1 to 4, and their replies referring to their dogs or cats were tabulated accordingly. If their reply referred only to their dog or to their cat, the other animal was assigned to the "no" category for question 3 and "don't know" category for questions 5 to 7.
Statistical analysis was carried out using 2 x 2 contingency tables and the chi-squared test (Campbell, 1989). Probability values for two-tailed tests were used.
Results
Pet ownership
Out of 200 households surveyed, 132 (66%) had pets, a somewhat higher percentage than the U.S. national average of 58% (Jaegermann, 1992). Cats were the most common pet, followed by dogs. The figures were as follows:
| Cats | 83 | Horses | 2 |
| Dogs | 69 | Chickens | 2 |
| Birds (excl. chickens) | 7 | Rats | 2 |
| Rabbits | 6 | Hamster | 1 |
| Fish | 6 | Snake | 1 |
| Lizards | 3 |
Most of these households had one kind of pet: 49 had cats only, and 34 had dogs only; 28 had both dogs and cats, and 5 of these had other pets as well; 6 had cats and other pets (excluding dogs); 2 had dogs and other pets; 9 had only other pets.
These Santa Cruz households were unusual in that more had cats than dogs, whereas both nationally and in the state of California more households have dogs than cats. A slightly lower proportion of households had dogs (35%) than the U.S. national average of 37% (Jaegerman, 1992) and a higher proportion had cats (42%) than the national average of 31% (Jaegerman, 1992).
Table 1.
Replies to Questions 3 and 4
Have you/other members of your household ever noticed a pet
getting agitated before a family member has arrived home?
Numbers (and percentages) of dogs or cats
|
Total |
Yes |
No | ||
| DOGS |
69 |
31 (45%) |
38 (55%) | |
| CATS |
83 |
26 (31%) |
57 (69%) | |
How long before you/they arrive is your pet agitated?
Numbers (and percentages) of dogs or cats reacting
|
Total |
0-5 min |
5-10 min |
10-20 min |
20+ min |
Don'tknow | |
| DOGS |
31 |
15 (48%) |
7 (23%) |
5 (16%) |
1 (3%) |
3 (10%) |
| CATS |
26 |
8 (31%) |
3 (11%) |
3 (11%) |
3 (11%) |
9 (35%) |
Dogs and Cats that Seem to Anticipate the Arrival of a Member
of the Household
The majority of animals that appeared to anticipate their owner's
arrival were dogs and cats, but there were three bird-owners in the
study who claimed that their birds displayed such anticipatory
behaviour. Data for dogs and cats in reply to Questions 3 and 4 are
shown in Table 1.
A higher proportion of dogs than cats appear to anticipate arrivals. In this survey the figures were 45% and 31% respectively, but this difference was not statistically significant.
48% of the dog owners and 31% of the cat owners who reported that their pets anticipated arrivals said that the behaviour occurred less than five minutes beforehand. 19% of dog owners and 22% of cat owners who reported this phenomenon said that it occurred more than ten minutes before the household members' arrival.
The birds in the survey said to anticipate a household member's arrival were a parrot, parakeet and cockatoo. The cockatoo was said to respond between 5-10 minutes in advance, while the other two birds responded less than 5 minutes before the arrival.
Pets that Seem to Respond to their Owners' Thoughts and
Intentions
Many pet owners report that their animals seem to know when they
are going out before they show any physical signs of doing so. Some
also claim that their pets can actually respond directly to their
thoughts or silent intentions (Sheldrake & Smart, 1997). Some
refer to this type of communication as a form of "telepathy", and
some attribute it to a "sixth sense". Questions 5,6 and 7 were asked
to find out how common these impressions are, and the results are
summarized in Table 2.
The responses of pets to thoughts and intentions.
Table 2. Replies to Questions 5, 6 and 7.
| Would you agree or disagree that your pet
knows you are going out before you show any physical signs of
doing so? | ||||
|
Numbers (and percentages) of
pets | ||||
|
Total |
Agree |
Disagree |
Don't know | |
| DOGS |
69 |
45 (65%) |
10 (15%) |
14 (20%) |
| CATS |
83 |
31 (37%) |
15 (18%) |
37 (45%) |
| Would you agree or disagree that you pet responds to your own thoughts or silent commands? | ||||
|
Numbers (and percentages) of pets | ||||
|
Total |
Agree |
Disagree |
Don't know | |
| DOGS |
69 |
32 (46%) |
11 (16%) |
26 (38%) |
| CATS |
83 |
34 (41%) |
12 (14%) |
37(45%) |
| Would you agree or disagree that your pet is sometimes telepathic with you? | ||||
|
Numbers (and percentages) of pets | ||||
|
Total |
Agree |
Disagree |
Don't know | |
| DOGS |
69 |
29 (42%) |
20 (29%) |
20 (29%) |
| CATS |
83 |
28 (34%) |
16 (19%) |
39 (47%) |
Dog owners agreed more than cat owners (65% and 37% respectively) that their pet knows that they are going out before they show any physical signs of doing so. This difference was significant (p<0.001).
More dog than cat owners (46% and 41% respectively) agreed that their pet responds to their own thoughts or silent commands, and more dog than cat owners also believed that their pet is sometimes telepathic with them (42% and 34% respectively). In neither of these cases were the differences between dogs and cats significant statistically.
One rat owner thought the rat was telepathic with him, and three bird owners thought that their birds responded to their thoughts: these birds were a parakeet, a canary and finches.
Telepathic connections with pets in the past
Both pet owners and non-pet owners were asked about telepathy
with pets they have known in the past, and the results are
summarized in Table 3. 49% of current pet owners, and 31% of non-pet
owners said that they had known pets in the past that they
considered to be telepathic. This difference was statistically
significant (p<0.02).
Table 3 Answers to Question 8 and 9
| Would you agree or disagree that
any of the pets you have known in the past were
telepathic? | ||||
|
|
Numbers (and percentages) of people | |||
|
Total |
Agree |
Disagree |
Don't know | |
| Pets now |
132 |
65 (49%) |
29 (22%) |
38 (29%) |
| No pets now |
68 |
21 (31%) |
7 (10%) |
40 (59%) |
| How frequently have you yourself had a psychical experience? | ||||
|
|
Numbers (and percentages) of people | |||
|
Total |
Frequently |
Sometimes |
Never | |
| All pet owners |
132 |
12 (9%) |
72 (55%) |
48 (36%) |
| Dog owners |
69 |
6 (9%) |
37 (54%) |
26 (38%) |
| Cat owners |
83 |
7 (8%) |
49 (59%) |
27 (33%) |
| Non-pet-owners |
68 |
6 (9%) |
21 (31%) |
41 (60%) |
The Respondents' own psychic Experience
More than half (56%) the respondents said that they had had what
they consider to be a psychic experience at some point in their
lives (Table 3).
Slightly more cat than dog owners claimed to have had a psychic experience (67% and 63% respectively), but this difference was not significant statistically.
However, there was a very significant difference (p=0.005) between pet owners and non-pet owners. Considerably more pet owners claimed to have had psychic experiences themselves than non-pet owners, 64% as opposed to 40%.
In order to investigate further the significantly lower incidence
of psychic experience among non-pet owners, D.B. telephoned the same
non-pet owners again in November 1997, a year after the main survey
was conducted, to ask if they had ever kept pets in the past. He was
able to reach 54 out of the 68 non-pet owners originally surveyed.
Out of these, 41 (76%) said they had previously owned a cat or a
dog, and of these 41, 17 (41%) were psychic. Of the 13 who had never
owned a dog or cat, 4 (31%) were psychic. However, this difference
was not statistically significant.
Table 4. Comparison of the Responses of Psychic and Non-psychic Pet
Owners to Questions 3,5,6,7 and 8 about their Dogs or Cats.
| Numbers (and percentages) of people giving positive responses, and the statistical significance of differences between psychic and non-psychic owners | |||
|
Psychic |
Non-psychic |
Significance (p) | |
| A. DOGS | |||
| Totals |
43 |
26 |
|
| Know when arriving |
23 (53&) |
8 (31&) |
NS |
| Know when leaving |
29 (67%) |
16 (62%) |
NS |
| Silent commands |
23 (53%) |
9 (35%) |
NS |
| Telepathy |
20 (47%) |
9 (35%) |
NS |
| Telepathy: past pets |
25 (58%) |
10 (38%) |
NS |
| B. CATS | |||
| Totals |
56 |
27 |
|
| know when arriving |
18 (32%) |
8 (30%) |
NS |
| Know when leaving |
22 (39%) |
9 (33%) |
NS |
| Silent commands |
28 (50%) |
6 (22%) |
<0.02 |
| Telepathy |
23 (41%) |
5 (19%) |
< 0.05 |
| Telepathy: past pets |
34 (61%) |
9 (33%) |
< 0.03 |
Differences Between Psychic and Non-psychic Owners' Responses
We compared the answers about their pets given by dog and cat
owners who said they had themselves had psychic experiences
frequently or sometimes ('psychic owners') with the answers given by
owners who said they had never had psychic experiences ('non-psychic
owners'). For all questions, a higher proportion of psychic owners
gave positive responses than non-psychic owners (Table 4). Although
in most cases these differences were not statistically significant,
when the combined data for dog and cat owners were analysed, the
differences between psychic and non-psychic owners were
statistically significant for questions 6, 7 and 8, relating to
silent commands (p<0.005), telepathy (p<0.03) and telepathy
with past pets (p<0.03), but not for questions 3 and 5, relating
to the anticipation of arrivals and departures.
Differences Between Male and Female Respondents
We compared the proportions of men and women who gave positive
answers to the questions about their pets and themselves (Table 5).
The greatest difference was in relation to telepathy with their pet,
with 46% of women and 31% of men agreeing that their pet was
sometimes telepathic with them. And 47% of woman said they had
sometimes or frequently had a psychic experience, compared with 35%
of men. More men than women agreed that their pet anticipated their
going out, 64% as opposed to 51%. But none of these differences was
statistically significant at the p=0.05 level of probability.
Table 5. Comparison of Male and Female Respondents
Questions 3,5,6 and 7 were applicable only to current pet owners,
but all respondents were asked Questions 8 and 9
| Numbers (and percentages) of people giving positive responses. | ||
| Male | Female | |
| Total numbers in survey | 66 | 134 |
| Total with pets | 45 (68%) | 87 (65%) |
| Pet Owners | ||
| Know when arriving | 18 (40%) | 39 (45%) |
| Know when leaving | 29 (64%) | 45 (52%) |
| Silent Commands | 20 (44%) | 39 (45%) |
| Telepahty | 14 (31%) | 40 (46%) |
| All respondents | ||
| Telepathy: past pets | 23 (35%) | 63 (38%) |
| Own psychic experience | 31 (47%) | 80 (60%) |
DISCUSSION
Comparison with the Survey in Greater Manchester
This survey complements a previous study carried out in
North-West England, at Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester (Sheldrake
& Smart, 1997). The results of both surveys are in remarkably
good agreement.
Practically all the claims of unusual perceptiveness concerned dogs and cats. In both surveys a higher proportion of dogs than cats was said to anticipate the arrival of a member of the household. The percentage of dogs said to show this behaviour was almost identical: 46% in Ramsbottom and 45% in Santa Cruz. In Ramsbottom, only 14% of the cats were said to anticipate the return of a member of the household, whereas in Santa Cruz 31% were said to do so. This difference between the two locations was statistically significant (p=0.01).
The pattern of response to arrivals was very similar on both sides of the Atlantic. In Ramsbottom, the proportion of dogs said to anticipate the arrival of a member of the household 10 minutes or more in advance was 16%, compared with 19% in Santa Cruz. For cats these figures were 23% and 22% respectively. In both Ramsbottom and Santa Cruz, the only other animals said to show this anticipatory behaviour were birds: in Ramsbottom a cockatiel, and in Santa Cruz a parrot, a parakeet and a cockatoo.
There was also a remarkable similarity in the responses to the question "Would you agree or disagree that your pet knows you are going out before you show any physical signs of doing so?". In Ramsbottom 69% of dog owners agreed, and in Santa Cruz 65%. The proportion of cat owners that agreed was significantly lower in both locations: 32% in Ramsbottom and 37% in Santa Cruz.
In both Ramsbottom and Santa Cruz a higher proportion of dogs than cats were said to respond to their owners' thoughts or silent commands and to be telepathic with their owners.
In Ramsbottom and in Santa Cruz, around half the current pet owners said that some of the pets they had known in the past were telepathic (53% and 49% respectively). But more non-pet owners in Ramsbottom than in California said that pets they had known in the past were telepathic (55% as opposed to 31%).
In Santa Cruz a higher proportion of pet owners claimed to have had a psychic experience themselves than in Ramsbottom (64% compared with 54%). The Santa Cruz figures are in general agreement with other random surveys of American adults, according to which between 60% (Haraldsson, 1985) and 75% (Gallup and Newport, 1991) claim to have had psychic experiences.
In Ramsbottom significantly more dog than cat owners claimed to have psychic experiences themselves. By contrast, in Santa Cruz more cat than dog owners claimed to have had such experiences, although this difference was not significant statistically. In both surveys the proportion of households with dogs was similar: 35% in Santa Cruz and 31% in Ramsbottom. However, the proportion of households with cats was far higher in Santa Cruz, 42% compared with 24% in Ramsbottom.
Comparison of Cats and Dogs
In both surveys, dogs were reported to be more sensitive or
responsive to their owner's departures and arrivals than cats. This
is in general agreement with the fact that dog owners tend to have
closer relationships with their pets than cat owners (e.g. Albert
and Anderson, 1997), and cats tend to be less sociable and more
independent than dogs (Hart, 1995). Likewise, in both surveys dogs
were said to be more responsive than cats to their owners' thoughts
and silent commands than cats, and also to be more telepathic with
their owners.
Pet Ownership and Psychic Experience
One of the most surprising features of this survey was the large
difference between what pet owners and non-pet owners said about
their own psychic experience. 64% of pet owners said they had had
psychical experiences themselves; whereas only 40% of people without
pets said so. This difference was statistically significant at the
p=0.005 level.
There was a similar but less pronounced pattern among non-pet owners: 17 out of 41 (41%) of those who had kept pets in the past were psychic, compared with 4 out of 13 (31%) who had never kept pets. This difference was not statistically significant.
Why should pet owners appear to be more psychic than non-pet owners? Here are three possibilities:
- Living with animals can bring out a psychic awareness in people, an awareness that might otherwise be latent or unrecognized.
- People who think of themselves as psychic are more likely to keep pets.
- This difference may not be real, but an artefact of the surveying process.
Perhaps pet and non-pet owners think of themselves of psychic to about the same extent, but the way the question was asked in this survey may have put off non-pet owners from admitting it. This could have happened because pet owners were asked this question after answering a series of questions about their pets. This may have made them more open to anwering a personal question. Non-pet owners, by contrast, were asked about their own psychic experience much sooner, and may have been less prepared to speak about such a personal matter to a stranger.
Some light is shed on this possibility by the results of another survey recently carried out in London, where there was practically no difference between the replies of pet owners and non-pet owners: 39% of pet owners said they had had a psychical experience themselves, compared with 38% of non-pet owners (Sheldrake, Turney and Lawlor, 1998). This shows that argument 3 is not very strong, because in London pet and non-pet owners seemed equally prepared (or unprepared) to affirm that they had had psychical experiences, in spite of the presence or absence of preceding quesions about present pets.
Although the London data did not confirm the difference found in Santa Cruz between current pet owners and non-pet owners in their psychic experience, they showed a striking difference between non-pet owners who had kept pets in the past and those who had never kept pets. Those who had never kept pets were significantly less psychic than those who had. A similar, but less pronounced, pattern was found in Santa Cruz.
If further research reveals that there are indeed differences in psychic experience between people who have kept pets compared with those who have not, then it will be important to devise ways of distinguishing between possibilities 1 and 2 above.
The Reliability of People's Reports
All surveys raise questions of reliability. In this study a
possible source of bias may stem from a tendency for pet owners to
exaggerate their pets' abilities, owing to their emotional
attachment to their animals. Conversely, people who pay relatively
little attention to their animals may not observe them closely
enough to be aware of their responses.
Interestingly, as in Ramsbottom, a higher proportion of psychic pet owners claimed that their pets were psychic than non-psychic owners (Table 4). The owners' own experience and beliefs about psychic phenomena could well have biased their observations and responses, with psychic owners tending to exaggerate their pets' psychic powers and non-psychic owners tending to disregard them. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of non-psychic owners reported that their pets were uncannily perceptive, with 31% claiming that their dogs anticipated the return of a member of the household, and 35% claiming that their dogs were sometimes telepathic with them.
We do not know how much these and other forms of bias influenced our data. What is evident, however, is that many pet owners report that their animals appear to possess seemingly unexplained abilities.
The Need for Experimental Investigations
The results of this survey do not necessarily imply the existence
of a "sixth sense" or psychic abilities in animals. But they
certainly show that many pet owners believe that their animals show
such abilities, and the results are suggestive enough to justify
further research. Some of the seemingly mysterious phenomena
discussed in this paper may ultimately be explicable in terms of the
impressive sensory range of cats and dogs, combined with subtle cues
of which their owners are unaware. However, some of their perceptive
behaviour may be due to influences at present unknown to science.
Experimental investigations are needed to tease apart these
possibilities.
In the case of a dog that appears to anticipate his owner's arrival, preliminary experiments have already shown that this response does not seem to be explicable in terms of routine, the sounds of familiar vehicles or other auditory cues, or knowledge by the people at home when the owner will return (Sheldrake & Smart, 1998). These investigations are continuing.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the people who took part in this survey, as well as Pamela Smart, Nina Graboi and Ralph Abraham for their valuable help. We are grateful to the Lifebridge Foundation, New York and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Sausalito, California, for their financial support.
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