Poll: Your View of Domestic Dog Groups

 We've known for a LONG time that there are more than 5 senses.  So I suppose another way to say it would be, I'm not arguing that there's no 6th sense, but there's also a seventh sense and an eighth sense and a ninth sense....  and there's not really anything "special" about it.  It's pretty well known for example, that that "weird" feeling you get when someone creeps up behind you, or when you can "feel" someone looking at you.... yup, those are part of our "senses".  There are loads of them.

I can't even remember how we got to this point from the original topic.  Argh. 

Yeah, but I don't think we're talking about premonition or something similar, here. Trust me, I believe in weird things that science doesn't believe in. I'm certanly not bound by science, but I certainly won't abandon it when it can explain something, either. Dogs don't need premonition when they can read us like a novel just by what we look and smell like. Now, what I've got with Kit possibly is a bit of something beyond science. I'm told that a week before I came home from 6 months overseas he unaccountably perked up and became bolder and more active. But when we're together, there's nothing magic about the way we communicate. He's got an attention to detail that seems like magic, but if I'm careful, I can watch how his behaviour changes in response to changes in my physical appearance, such as my weight balance, posture, and the tension or relaxation of particular muscle groups. I can get the same responses from him whether I come loaded with intentions and in a particular emotional state than when I try out things I know I do in those states with a purely "what happens if..." in my head. It's better if I'm actually in that emotional state, but that's because he picks up details that I don't, so I give him  more complete picture if I'm signalling honestly.

Thanks Chuffy. Normally I need houndlove to come along and articulate exactly what is in my head in a precise and clear manner. Where is houndlove these days? 

corvus

Yeah, but I don't think we're talking about premonition or something similar, here.

I'm told that a week before I came home from 6 months overseas he unaccountably perked up and became bolder and more active. But when we're together, there's nothing magic about the way we communicate.

 

I don't know why the word premonition popped up here. But I'll give you an example or two of dogs picking up mental images from us, which is what I was talking about (either here on the theory of mind thread):

I had this usual routine with a dog I worked with: We'd go to the park, I'd throw the ball, and as he brought it back, I'd reach into the pocket of my training vest and get out a piece of cheese. When he got to where I was, I'd toss him the cheese so he'd drop the ball. Once he did that first drop of the day, we could get on with things. If I didn't give it to him, he held onto the ball. His usual behavior was wait for the cheese then drop the ball. Bu on every throw after that, he'd drop the ball immediately and back up, with his head kind of cocked in a ready position.

So one day I was playing fetch with him while I was kind of lost in my own thoughts. I must have thrown the ball about 17 times before I realized I hadn't given him a piece of cheese from my pocket. I remember very clearly that I had a visual image of the way I normally reached into my pocket on that first throw, and I had this image when the dog was chasing the ball. So he couldn't have "read" my body language when I had it. His back was turned. When he brought the ball back he dropped it, just like on the previous throws, but instead of backing up, with his head cocked, waiting for me to pick up the ball and throw it, he just stood there, head and neck erect. He was staring intently at my pocket...

My own dog, who was trained to walk off-lead on the sidewalk ahead of me, would sometimes go up to the door of a business of one kind or another, at times even if there was no past history of us going in there (like with my favorite deli or the laundromat). He once walked right up to the door of a stationery store we'd never been in, turned and looked to me as if to say, "Isn't this where we're going?"

Why would he do that? I thought. Then I realized I'd had a passing  image in my mind of going in there to see if they had a certain type of envelope I wanted, but had decided to get one later at a store closer to my apartment. It wasn't until I saw the look on Freddie's face, as if he were expecting me to go inside, that I realized he'd "read" my mind.

Also, about 15 years ago, I was in the process of training both these dogs to hold a stay at a distance, both at the same time (it helped the novice to have my dog, who'd already mastered the command, there as an example). One day I noticed that they were both breaking the stay a fraction of a second before I gave the release signal. I wondered what I was doing wrong. Was it something in my body language that was triggering them to come running toward me? On the next try I made very certain not to give off any unconscious visual cues, but noticed that I had a very clear image of them running to me as fast as they could after I'd given the release signal. I hadn't given the release signal; I just visualizing them running toward me at full speed because that's what I wanted -- for them to run full speed toward me. So, even though I was carefully controlling my body language, everything down to my breathing, and before I said anything, or gave any other physical signal for them to come to me, they broke the stay and ran to me at full speed. I laughed myself silly realizing I had to learn NOT to have those visual images while they were holding the stay. Once I learned to do that, they were perfect at it,

LCK

By the way, I picked up on this "reading mental images" phenomenon well before Rupert Sheldrake's book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home came out. I remember thinking when I'd read about it in the NY TImes after it came out that it might "validate" my own experiences. And I actually spoke to Sheldrake about these three experiences at a lecture he gave in New York during a book tour. I explained my feeling that a strong feeling of desire was usually associated, not only with my examples, but with all the examples in his book.
 

Sorry, premonition came up in one of the links Four posted.

That's an interesting notion and one I might just have to try out. I've tried a number of occassions on my hare and other wild animal to try to tell them that I mean them well and I'm not going to hurt them. It never works! They always seem pretty convinced that they're not going to like what I do to them. I know my hare can tell when I walk into the room when I'm planning to try to lure him into a travel cage. I don't think he knows exactly what I plan to do, but he knows I'm up to something and he probably won't like it. He quickly works out what I want to do and sets about thwarting me at every turn. Because we do have quite an odd, non-physical but touchy-feely kind of relationship, I have tried willing him to go into the cage, and filling myself with love and compassion for him as I try to prod him into it and just sitting there wallowing in my feelings of frustration that I have no better way to work with him. He has my number, though, and he'll be suspicious of everything I do for the rest of the day, even if I give up and decide to try another time.

I've never tried it with a domestic animal, though. I think if it would work with anything it would work with them. Having said that, I do think that sometimes my body language betrays me and I don't even know about it. It's hard to say if something you're not very aware of has an affect.

 I think this idea of "communication" with mental images is somehow more plausible to me than "premonition". 

Scamp the schnauzer who was on tv the other night "predicting" when people were going to die.... it wasn't anything "spooky", he lived in an elderly people's home and he could smell the changes that were taking place in the body before the person passed away.

Remember the horse, Clever Hans or something.  He COULDN'T actually count, but he was picking up on the TINIEST clues from his owner without his owner even knowing he was doing it!  CM advises people to imagine a time when they have been successful at work and visualise that when dealing with the dog - because what you THINK of affects how you act, look, sound and smell....  By THINKING of doing something, going somewhere, etc. you change your posture, smell, facial expression in ways we can barely detect.  But animals are better at it, presumably because they lack the advantage of a spoken language as sophisticated as ours. And like corvus and rock climbing - it's not consciously  analysed, all the tiny factors are picked up on and processed on a different level.

Sometimes I will think of taking the dogs out for a walk and they will get up and look at me expectantly and go to the door before I have even put my book down or switched off the computer.  Is the mental image/feeling of going for a walk transmitted to them telepathically, or do they detect tiny changes in my posture, breathing etc. that always occurr right before going for a walk?  That's how epilepsy dogs work, right?  It's not anything in any way other worldly; the dog is just picking up on the subtlest signals from us that much of the time we are not even aware we are sending. 

Chuffy

Is the mental image/feeling of going for a walk transmitted to them telepathically, or do they detect tiny changes in my posture, breathing etc. that always occurr right before going for a walk?  That's how epilepsy dogs work, right?  It's not anything in any way other worldly; the dog is just picking up on the subtlest signals from us that much of the time we are not even aware we are sending. 

 

I can see your point. And of course I thought about it a lot back when I was paying attention to the three experiences I described: a) the dog who stared a hole in my pocket when I remembered that I hadn't given him his usual treat after the first go-round of fetch, b) how my own dog used to go up to the doors of shops when we were out for walks, but only if I'd been thinking of going in those specific shops, and of course c) the problems I had while teaching the stay exercise.

But the first two types of incidents happened when the dogs had their backs turned to me. And I was nowhere near close enough to them for them to detect changes in my breathing. And I seriously doubt that having a passing imaginative thought or two would change my body chemistry enough for them to detect that, or translate it into something that wasn't a normal procedure for them, like going for a walk is for your dogs.

If you're really interested in this, read Sheldrake's book. It's a lot of fun. At the lecture I went to he said that he went to all the vets' offices in a certain section of London to get statistics on how many times people had to cancel an appointment for their cat because the cat disappeared on the day of the scheduled visit. In all of the offices except one, the receptionists said that it happened almost all the time, even when people leave the cat carrier out for several days or weeks. In almost every case the owners either had to re-schedule, or they were several hours late because the cat had disappeared. In the one office that was an exception, Sheldrake was told that they don't allow people to make appointments for their cats; that the owners have less trouble getting the cat into his carrier if they just decide to bring him in at the last minute.

It's a really interesting book.

LCK
 

When I was camping on a ranch in Mexico, we were sharing a paddock with a small herd of bulls. One was injured and needed vet care. Every day, a bunch of cowboys would ride up and spend the day trying to find this injured bull. Every day they failed. In my wanderings one morning, I came across a bull backed into a dense little pocket of screening brush with a small canyon at his back. I've never seen a cow so still and quiet! He saw me and practically gave me a nod and settled back to his game of hide and seek. He was very relaxed and I'm convinced he knew exactly what he was doing. I'm not sure if he was the injured one or not, but over the coming days, we saw a lot of bulls in all sorts of odd places, but we never saw the one the cowboys were looking for. It took them about a week to finally track it down and take it back to the ranch. I suspect bulls don't like cowboys, but then, the cowboys found uninjured bulls over and over, but the one they wanted was just never there.

yeah, but how sure can you be that these mental images popping up in your head aren't affecting your body language? or, in the hare example, that the other people in the household, who knew someone was coming home soon, weren't giving off "happy body language" vibes that affected the hare's behavior?

Also, with humans, you can punish for something that happened yesterday and the human will understand that this punishment now is for that thing yesterday. Dogs do not understand that.

that's only because you can talk to the human being punished and tell him why. Not because of some difference in mental processes. Although I agree most dogs aren't as good as abstract thought or logic as most humans, but it's a matter of degree, not that dogs don't think in ways similar to people.

True, thoughts can affect body language, and may be communicated to the animals. Like where Penny would know I was leaving as soon as I started to plan my return in my head. Don't know about the hare as I wasn't there! But it's all together possible. He's crazy sensitive to body language. I guess when you're a small prey animal that lives in the open and relies on bolting from danger, it pays to have a pretty fair idea what something is about before they sniff you out and try to eat you. 

mudpuppy

yeah, but how sure can you be that these mental images popping up in your head aren't affecting your body language? or, in the hare example, that the other people in the household, who knew someone was coming home soon, weren't giving off "happy body language" vibes that affected the hare's behavior?

 

Bingo!

 

If were going to conclude that dogs are sensitive to body language I will agree. Everytime I or DH have been hurt in a specific area of our body Rory has been ON IT! Literlayy....when it was my ankle she would try and straddle it in the middle of the night. When DH broke his shoulder blade she would try and lay on it. When he had a tooth ache she would not stop licking his jaw and we actually had a friend at a BBQ who was feeling faint and didnt say anything but we were all wondering why Rory was stuck to him like glue even though she'd never met him. Two minutes later he fainted and she was ON HIM, laying on his body very concerned and we had to pull her off him. She just very calmly laid atop his chest like she was some healing canine, lol.

It actually freaks me out because since she was a pup she has a obssesion with my left ear, the back actually. She weasles her nose behind my ear lobe and wil just breath real heavily for as long as I let her. Its rather strange becasue my grandma died from a tumor behind her ear. And Rory will just breath and breath behind my ear. I wake up to her sniffing me out!