The Telepathic Dog Who Knew When
His Owner Was Coming Home
If
you’re a dog owner, you probably already believe that your dog and you
have some sort of telepathic connection, and you’ve had some experiences which
strengthen that belief.
Below
is a video that was done by Rupert
Sheldrake, a biologist and author of 10 books and more than 80 scientific
papers. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge and philosophy and
history of science at Harvard, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow. He took a PhD
in biochemistry at Cambridge and was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge,
where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. He was also
a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. From 1974 to 1978 he was Principal
Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, where he worked on the
physiology of tropical legume crops, and remained Consultant Physiologist until
1985.
He
is one of many world class scholars who have dived into the realm of
parapsychological (PSI) phenomenon.
Unexplained
phenomena that have been been observed, examined, and repeated by scientists
from all around the globe still receive harsh criticism from the
mainstream scientific community. Most modern day mainstream science
operates under the assumption that matter is the only reality. Today, this
notion is known as “scientific materialism.” Fortunately, this view is
disappearing at a fast rate, given the fact that quantum physics has shown us
that what we perceive as our physical material world is not really physical at
all.
When
it comes to phenomena grouped under the label of “parapsychological
phenomenon,” there is no shortage of documented cases where telepathy, remote
viewing, psychokinesis, and more have been observed at the highest level of
government.
Here
is what the scientific method states:
- We see something
unexplained
- We develop an
explanation (hypothesis)
- We test the
explanation with an experiment that gives us facts
- We evaluate the
facts, and if they support the explanation, we have a theory. If they
don’t, we have to go back to step 2 and change our explanation as well as
repeat the process.
The
issue with phenomena like telepathy is that we have no hypothesis, no
explanation, and no supporting evidence to validate their existence. Despite
the fact that these phenomena are real and have been observed/repeated in
various laboratories all around the world, our inability to explain them
within the confines of a materialistic worldview has placed some of these
occurrences into the realm of “pseudoscience,” which is absolutely absurd.
“Some materialistically inclined scientists and philosophers refuse to
acknowledge these phenomena because they are not consistent with their
exclusive conception of the world. Rejection of post-materialist investigation
of nature or refusal to publish strong science findings supporting a
post-materialist framework are antithetical to the true spirit of scientific
inquiry, which is that empirical data must always be adequately dealt with.
Data which do not fit favored theories and beliefs cannot be dismissed as
priori. Such dismissal is the realm of ideology, not science.”
A Dog That Seems to Know When
His Owner is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observations
by Rupert
Sheldrake and Pamela Smart
Introduction
Many dog
owners claim that their animal knows when a member of the household is about to
come home.
Typically, the dog is said to go and wait at a door, window or gate while the
person is on the way home (Sheldrake, 1994, 1999a). Random household surveys in
Britain and the United States have shown that between 45 and 52 per cent of dog
owners say they have noticed this kind of behavior (Brown & Sheldrake,
1998; Sheldrake, Lawlor & Turney, 1998; Sheldrake & Smart, 1997).
Dog owners
often ascribe their animals' anticipations to telepathy or a "sixth
sense", but there could be more conventional explanations:
- First, the dog could be hearing
or smelling its owner approaching.
- Second, the dog could be reacting
to routine times of return.
- Third, it could be responding to
subtle cues from people at home who know when the absent person is
returning.
- Fourth, the animal may go to the
place at which it waits for its owner when the person is not on the way
home; the people at home may remember its apparent anticipation only when
the person returns shortly afterwards, forgetting the other occasions.
Thus the phenomenon could simply be an artifact of selective memory.
In order to
test these possibilities, the dog should be capable of reacting at least ten
minutes in advance, the person to whom the dog responds should come home at
non-routine times, the people at home should not know when this person is
coming, and the behavior of the dog should be recorded in such a way that
selective memory can be ruled out (Sheldrake, 1994). This recording of the
dog's behavior can be done most effectively by means of time-coded videotape.
In this
paper we describe a series of videotaped experiments and observations with a
dog called Jaytee, belonging to Pamela Smart (PS).
Jaytee's
anticipatory behavior
PS adopted
Jaytee from Manchester Dogs' Home in 1989 when he was still a puppy, and soon formed a
close bond with him. She lived in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester, in a
ground-floor flat, adjacent to the flat of her parents, William and Muriel
Smart, who were retired. When she went out, she usually left Jaytee with her
parents.
In 1991,
when PS was working as a secretary in Manchester, her parents noticed that
Jaytee used to go to the French window in the living rrom almost every weekday
at about 4:30 PM, around the time she set off to come home. Her journey usually
took 45-60 minutes, and Jaytee would wait at the window most of the time she
was on her way. Since she worked routine office hours, the family assumed that
Jaytee's behavior depended on some kind of time sense.
PS was laid
off from her job in 1993, and was subsequently unemployed. She was often away
from home for hours at a time, and was no longer tied to any regular pattern of
activity. Her parents usually did not know when she would be returning, but
Jaytee still continued to anticipate her return. His reactions seemed to occur
around the time she set off on her homeward journey.
In April
1994, PS read an article in the British Sunday Telegraph about the research
Rupert Sheldrake (RS) was doing on this phenomenon (Matthews, 1994) and
volunteered to take part. The first stage in this investigation was the keeping
of a log by PS and her parents. Between May 1994 and February, 1995 on 100
occasions she left Jaytee with her parents when she went out, and they made
notes on Jaytee's reactions. PS herself kept a record of where she had been,
how far she had travelled (usually at least 6 km and sometimes 50 km), her mode
of transport, and when she had set off to come home. On 85 of these 100
occasions, Jaytee reacted by going to wait at the French window in the living room
before PS returned, usually 10 or more minutes in advance.
When these
data were analyzed statistically, a linear regression of Jaytee's waiting times
against PS's journey times showed that the times when Jaytee began waiting were
very significantly (p<0 .0001="" 1998="" amp="" away="" did="" far="" heldrake="" how="" it="" matter="" not="" off="" ps="" related="" seem="" set="" she="" smart="" span="" that="" the="" times="" to="" was.="">
Jaytee's
anticipatory reactions usually began when PS was more than 6 km away. He could
not have heard her car at such distances, especially against the background of
the heavy traffic in Greater Manchester and on the M66 motorway, which runs
close to Ramsbottom. Moreover, Mr and Mrs Smart had already noticed that Jaytee
still anticipated PS's return when she arrived in unfamiliar vehicles.
Nevertheless,
to check that Jaytee was not reacting to the sound of PS's car or other
familiar vehicles, we investigated whether he still anticipated her arrival
when she travelled by unusual means: by bicycle, by train and by taxi. He did
(Sheldrake & Smart, 1998).
PS did not
usually tell her parents in advance when she would be coming home, nor did she
telephone to inform them. Indeed, she often did not know in advance when she
would be returning after shopping, visiting friends and relations, attending
meetings or after an evening out. But it is possible that her parents might in
some cases have guessed when she might be coming, and then, consciously or
unconsciously, communicated their expectation to Jaytee. Some of his reactions
might therefore be due to her parents' anticipation, rather than depending on
some mysterious influence from PS herself.
To test this
possibility, we carried out experiments in which PS set off at times selected
at random after she had left home. These times were unknown to anyone else. In
these experiments, Jaytee started to wait when she set off, even though no one
at home knew when she would be coming (Sheldrake & Smart, 1998). Therefore
his reactions could not be explained in terms of her parents' expectations.
Our first
series of investigations involved the recording of Jaytee's reactions in a
notebook, and hence necessitated a subjective assessment of his behavior. In
this paper we describe a pre-planned series of 12 experiments with
randomly-chosen return times in which Jaytee's behavior was recorded throughout
the entire period of PS's absence on time-coded videotape. We also discuss 4
videotaped experiments with randomly-chosen return times carried out with
Jaytee at our invitation by Richard Wiseman and Matthew Smith (Wiseman, Smith
& Milton, 1998; Sheldrake, 1999b).
In addition,
we describe 95 videotaped observations of Jaytee's behavior in three different
environments. We made these observations to find out more about the natural
history of the dog's anticipatory behavior. On these occasions, PS did not
return at randomly-selected times, but rather at times of her own choosing. She
went out and about shopping, visiting friends or members of her family,
attending meetings or visiting pubs and returned when she felt like it. Her
journeys varied in distance between 7 and 22 km away from home. They took place
at various times of the day or evening and followed no routine pattern. When
she left Jaytee with members of her family, they were not informed when she
would be returning, and she usually did not know in advance herself. On 50
occasions, Jaytee was left on his own.
We also
carried out a series of 10 control observations in which Jaytee was filmed
continuously on evenings when PS was not returning home, or was returning
unusually late.
Methods
In these
experiments, when PS went out she left Jaytee either in her parents' flat with
her parents,
William and Muriel Smart; or alone in her own flat in Ramsbottom, Greater
Manchester, next door to her parents' flat; or with her sister, Cathie
MacKenzie, in the nearby town of Edenfield. Having left Jaytee, PS traveled a
minimum distance of 7 km. She recorded in a notebook the details of where she
had been to, when she set off to come home, how long her journey took and her
mode of transport. In some cases she traveled in taxis or in cars belonging to
her sisters or friends, but in most cases she traveled in her own car, since we
had already established that Jaytee's anticipatory behavior still occurred when
she traveled in unfamiliar vehicles, and hence could not be explained in terms
of the dog hearing her car (Sheldrake & Smart, 1998).
While PS was
out, Jaytee's visits to the window and his absences from it were monitored
continuously on videotape. The videotaping procedure was kept as simple as
possible, so that the filming of Jaytee could be done routinely and
automatically. The video camera was set up on a tripod, and left running
continuously in the long-play mode with a long-play film, with the timecode
recorded on it. In this way up to 4 hours of continuous observation was
possible without anyone needing to attend to the camera. PS switched the camera
on just before she left, and switched it off when she returned. Because of the
need to keep Jaytee's visits to the window under continuous surveillance, all
experiments involved absences of less than 4 hours.
The camera
pointed at the area where Jaytee usually waited. In both PS's parent's flat and
in PS's own flat (a ground-floor flat adjacent to her parents') this was by the
French window in the living room, through which he could see the road outside
where PS drew up and parked her car. In PS's sister's house, Jaytee jumped up
onto the back of a sofa from which he could see out of the window.
Experiments with randomly selected return
times
In a
pre-planned series of 12 experiments with randomly selected return times,
Jaytee was left at PS parents' flat and PS did not know in advance when she
would be returning. Nor were her parents informed. In all these experiments, PS
travelled in her own car.
PS was
beeped on a telephone pager when it was time to set off home. On most
occasions, the random selection of the times and the beeping of PS were done by
RS, who was in London, over 300 km away. On two occasions (on 19 November 1996
and 1 July 1997) the selection of random times and the beeping was done by
another person in London who was unknown to PS or Jaytee.
These
"beep" times were within a pre-arranged period, between 45 and 90
minutes long. This period commenced 80 minutes to 170 minutes after PS had gone
out. The "beep window" was then divided into 20 equal intervals, and
one of these was selected at random by throwing a die three times, to determine
the page, row and column in standard random number tables (Snedecor and
Cochran, 1967). Reading downwards from this point looking at the first two
digits of each random number, the first pair of digits between 01 and 20
determined the time at which the beep was to be given.
Three of the
12 experiments were carried out in the afternoon, with beeps at 2:22, 3:04 and
3:36 PM; the remaining experiments were carried out in the evening with beeps
at a range of times between 8:09 and 9:39 PM.
Observations
in different environments
We carried
out a pre-planned series of 30 observations in PS's parents' flat between May 1995 and
July 1996. Seven of PS absences were in the daytime, at various times in the
morning and afternoon, with PS's times of return ranging from 11:13 AM to 3:36
PM. Twenty-three were in the evening, with PS returning at a range of times
between 7:30 and 10:45 PM. The length of her absences ranged from 85 to 220
minutes.
In PS's
parents' flat we also carried out a pre-planned series of 10 control
experiments on evenings when PS was not returning or coming home unusually
late. Her parents were not informed that she would not be returning during the
4-hour period that the videotape was running. This series of observations was
made between July and November 1997, during the period when we were doing
experiments with randomly-selected return times.
We also
carried out a pre-planned series of 50 observations in PS's own flat, where
Jaytee was left on his own, between May 1995 and September 1997. On 15 of these
occasions, PS went out and returned in the morning, with times of return
ranging from 9:59 to11:57 AM; on 34 occasions she returned in the afternoon, at
a range of times between 12:20 and 4:50 PM; and on one occasion she returned in
the evening, at 9:27 PM. The length of her absences ranged from 81 to 223
minutes.
The 5
observations at PS's sister's house were conducted between October 1995 and
June 1996, 2 in the morning and 3 in the evening, with absences ranging from 93
to 199 minutes.
Analysis
of videotapes and tabulation of data
The
videotapes were analyzed "blind" by Jane Turney and/or Dr Amanda
Jacks,
who did not know when PS set off to come home or other details of the
experiments. Starting from the beginning of the tape, they recorded the exact
times (to the nearest second) when Jaytee was in the target area near the
window, and made notes on his activities there: for example that he was barking
at a passing cat, sleeping in the sun or sitting looking out of the window for
no apparent reason. In cases where the same tape was scored blind by both
people, the agreement between their records was excellent, showing occasional
differences of only a second or so. (Although the scoring was carried out
blind, when the end of the tape was reached and PS was seen entering the room,
the judges then knew at what time she had arrived, and hence were no longer
blind. But by this time the data had all been recorded and were not
subsequently altered.) Some of the videotapes were also scored independently by
PS and RS to see how well their records corresponded to each other and to the
blind scores by Jane Turney of Amanda Jacks. Again the agreement was excellent,
with occasional differences of only a second or two.
For the
tabulation of the data, two methods were used. First, all the visits of Jaytee
to the window were included, even if he was there for reasons that seemed to be
unconnected with his anticipatory behavior, for example if he was simply
sleeping in the sun, barking at passing cats or watching people unloading cars.
In this way any selective use of data was avoided, although the data were
"noisy" because they included irrelevant visits to the window that
had nothing to do with PS's returns. Second, these visits to the window that
seemed to have nothing to do with Jaytee's anticipatory behavior were excluded.
This set of data was "cleaner" but more dependent on subjective
assessments. However, since these assessments were done "blind" they
should not have involved any systematic bias.
Statistical
analysis
We used two
main ways of analyzing the data. The first provided a simple way of averaging and
comparing different experiments. For each experiment, the percentage of the
time that Jaytee spent by the window was calculated for three periods:
1.
The first ten minutes after PS got into her car and
started traveling homewards (the "return period").
In the case of experiments with randomly-selected return times, this return
period was deemed to begin at the time PS received the beep signaling that she
should set off. All homeward journeys lasted at least 13 minutes. Thus Jaytee's
reactions in the last 3 or more minutes of PS's journey were omitted from the
analysis in case he could have been responding to the sounds of her car
approaching. In fact most journey-times were more than 15 minutes long, so more
than five minutes of Jaytee's behavior were omitted. In cases where the journey
time lasted 23 minutes or more, the percentage of time for the combined first
and second 10-minute periods of the return journey was also calculated, and a
separate statistical analysis was carried out for comparison with the usual
method involving only 10-minute return periods.
2.
The 10-minute period prior to the return period (the
"pre-return period").
3.
The time when Pam was absent prior to the pre-return
period (the "main period").
Because the experiments varied in length, the length of the main period ranged
between 50 and 200 minutes.
The
percentage of the time that Jaytee spent by the window in these three periods
were analyzed statistically by a repeated-measures analysis of variance, and
comparisons of pairs of periods were made using the paired-sample t test.
The second
method of analyzing the data also involved ten-minute return periods, but the
main period was also divided up into ten-minute intervals, defined in relation
to the time at which PS was beeped to come home. The total number of seconds
that Jaytee spent by the window in each of these ten-minute periods was then
plotted on graphs. In cases where PS's return journey lasted 23 minutes or
more, data for two 10 minute return periods are shown on the graphs,
representing the first 20 minutes of her homeward journey.
A
statistical analysis of the time-course data was carried out for us by Dr Dean
Radin using a randomized permutation analysis (RPA) (Good, 1994; Hjorth, 1994).
For each dataset, he calculated the correlation between time-at-the-window
versus the 10-minute segment number of the original data (as plotted in the
graphs in Fig. 4). These correlations showed strong positive trends. The RPA
calculations made the assumption that under the null hypothesis, Jaytee should
have spent about the same amount of time at the window in each of the 10-minute
periods. The z scores were formed as z = (original correlation - average
permutated correlation)/ (standard deviation of permutated correlations), based
on 500 random permutations. The RPA tests converged very rapidly; typically
only about 100 random permutations were needed, so the estimated z scores with
500 permutations were quite accurate.
Results
Experiments with randomly-selected return times
The overall results summarized in Fig. 1 show that Jaytee was at the window far
more when PS was on her way home than during the main period of her absence.
When all Jaytee's visits to the window were included in the analysis (Fig. 1A),
he was at the window for an average of 55 per cent of the time during the first
10 minutes of PS return journey, as opposed to 4 per cent of the time during
the main period of PS's absence. During the 10-minute pre-return period he was
at the window 23 per cent of the time. These differences were highly
significant statistically (repeated measures ANOVA, F-value (df 2,22)=20.46;
p<0 .0001="" comparing="" main="" p="0.0001)." paired-sample="" period="" return="" span="" t="" test="" with="">
Fig 1. The average
percentage of time spent at the window by Jaytee during the main period of
P.S’s absence (main period) during the 10 minutes prior to her setting off to
come home (prereturn), and during the first 10 minutes of her homeward journey
(return). Standard errors are indicated by bars. (A) Data for all visits to the
window. (B) Data excluding irrelevant visits.
When
Jaytee's irrelevant visits to the window were excluded from the analysis, the
general pattern was very similar (Fig. 1B), but the percentage of time at the
window was of course somewhat lower. In the main period Jaytee spent 0.5 per
cent of the time by the window; in the pre-return period 18 per cent and in the
return period 54 per cent. The significance of these differences was higher
than when all Jaytee's visits were included (repeated measures ANOVA, F-value
(df 2,22) 24.36; p=3x10-6).
In 6 out of
the 12 experiments, PS's return journeys took more than 23 minutes and hence
included two 10-minute periods rather than just one. In the analysis shown in
Figs 1A and 1B, only the first 10-minute return period was included. When both
10-minute return periods from these experiments were included in the analysis,
the average percentage of time at the window during the return period increased
from 55 to 61 per cent when all visits to the window were included, and from 54
to 59 per cent when irrelevant visits were excluded. The statistical
significance of the differences was even higher than before (repeated measures
ANOVA, F values (df 2,22) 25.43 and 29.03 respectively).
The
increased percentage of time the Jaytee spent at the window during the
10-minute pre-return period was statistically significant (paired-sample t test
comparing main period with pre-return period for data the included all visits
to the window, p=0.04). The difference between the pre-return and return
periods was very significant (p=0.0009). However, Jaytee did not visit the
window in the pre-return period in all experiments, but only in 7 out of 12.
The detailed
time courses for all 12 beep experiments are shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 The time courses form
all 12 experiments in which P.S. came home at randomly selected times in
response to being beeped. The ordinate shows the total number of seconds that
Jaytee spent at the window in each 10-minute period, the abcissa the series of
10-minute periods defined in relation to the time at which P.S was beeped to
come home. Data for all Jaytee’s visits to the window, including irrelevant
visits, are indicated by circles, and data from which irrelevant visits have
been excluded are indicated by squares. The beep window is indicated by a line
with two arrowheads, and this represents the period during which P.S could have
received the signal to come home. Experiments with beeps in the first half of
the beep window (early beeps) are on the left, and those with beeps in the
second half of the beep window (late beeps) are on the right. The points for the
10-minute periods immediately following the beep during which P.S was returning
are indicated by filled circles or squares. The graphs show the duration of all
Jaytee's visits to the window in each 10-minute period, both with and without
the exclusion of irrelevant visits. In one of these experiments, Jaytee did not
go to the window at all, but in all the others he was at the window for the
highest proportion of the time when PS was on her way home.
In 6 of
these experiments, PS was beeped to come home in the first half of the
"beep window" ("early beep") and in the other 6 she was
beeped in the second half ("late beep"). Inspection of the graphs
show that Jaytee responded in the pre-return period in only 2 of the early-beep
experiments, whereas he did so in 5 of the late-beep experiments (3 when
irrelevant visits to the window were excluded).
Thirty ordinary homecomings
In order to observe how Jaytee behaved under more or less "natural"
conditions, we made a pre-planned series of 30 videotapes of Jaytee at PS's
parents' flat while PS went out and about. She returned at times of her own
choosing, ranging from 11:13 AM to 10:45 PM, with absences ranging from 85 to
220 minutes. PS did not tell her parents when she would be returning, and
usually she did not know in advance herself.
The overall
results are shown in Fig. 3A. The general pattern is clear. On average, Jaytee
was at the window for the highest proportion of the time (65%) in the
"return" period, when PS was on her way home. He was at the window
31% of the time in the 10-minute "pre-return" period, and only 11% of
the time during the main period of her absence. These differences were highly
significant statistically (p<0 .0001="" and="" at="" between="" difference="" main="" p="0.0009." paired-sample="" period="" pre-return="" return="" significant="" span="" t="" tailed="" test="" the="" two="" using="" was="">
A number of
interesting details are hidden by this averaging process. First of all,
although on 24 occasions Jaytee spent more time at the window when PS was on
her way home, on six occasions he did not. On five (all in the evening) he did
not go to the window at all during the first ten minutes of her homeward
journey. On the sixth (in the morning) he did so for only 10 seconds. On some
of these occasions he was unusually inactive, and may have been exhausted after
long walks, or sick. But irrespective of the reasons for his unresponsiveness,
the fact is that he did not show his usual signs of anticipation on 6 out of 30
occasions.
Second, in
the daytime Jaytee was generally more active and alert than in the evening, and
on average was at the window more (Fig. 3B). There was more activity outside
for him to watch, and on sunny days he tended to snooze by the window in the
sunlight.
Third, the
effect of "noise" on the pattern of Jaytee's response can be examined
directly by comparing "noisy" experiments with "normal"
experiments (Fig. 3C). Noisy experiments were defined as one in which Jaytee
spent more than 15% of the time at the window in the main period. By this
criterion 7 out of the 30 experiments were "noisy". Most
"noisy" experiments occurred in the daytime when there was much
activity outdoors that Jaytee went to the window to watch. Also, on sunny days
he tended to lie down by the window in the sun and go to sleep. Nevertheless,
in both "normal" and "noisy" experiments Jaytee was at the
window least in the main period, more in the pre-return period and most when PS
was actually returning. These differences were highly significant for both
"normal" and "noisy" experiments analyzed separately
(p=0.0004 and p=0.0001 respectively).
Fourth, the
question of whether Jaytee's pattern of response changed with time can be
examined by comparing the average of the first ten experiments (from May to
September 1995) with the second (from September 1995 to January 1996) and third
batches of ten experiments (from January to July, 1996). The pattern was
similar in all three groups (Fig. 3D).
Finally, the
length of time that Pam was away from home varied considerably. Did Jaytee
behave in a similar way when she returned after short absences and after longer
ones? To explore this question, we have divided the data up into three groups:
long, medium and short absences, defined respectively as 180 minutes or more;
110-170 minutes; and 80-100 minutes . The general pattern in all three groups
was similar, but in the short absences the experiments were noisier, and Jaytee
showed more anticipation in the pre-return period (Fig. 3E).
Figure 3. Percentage of time spent at the
window by Jaytee during the main period of P.S’s absence during the 10 minutes
prior to her setting off to come home (prereturn), and during the first 10
minutes of her homeward journey ( return). Standard errors are indicated by
bars. (A) Averages from 30 ordinary homecomings. (B) Comparison of experiments
in the daytime (7) and in the evening (23). (C) Comparison of normal
experiments (23) and noisy experiments (7) in which Jaytee was at the window
for more than 15% of the time during the main period of P.S.’s absence. (D)
Comparison of the first, second and third groups of 10 experiments. (E)
Comparison of long (13), medium (9) and short (8) experiments.
Since Jaytee
was at the window most in the final period, when PS was on the way home, could
it be that Jaytee simply went to the window more and more when PS was out? If
he did so, he would automatically be at the window most in the final period
whatever the length of the experiment, and more in the penultimate period that
in the previous periods.
The
going-to-the-window-more-and-more hypothesis can be tested by looking in more
detail at the average timecourses of long, medium and short experiments in Fig.
4. This Figure shows data from all the experiments, and also from the
"normal" experiments after the exclusion of the minority of
"noisy" experiments, which tended to obscure the usual pattern.
The data in
Fig. 4 show that Jaytee's waiting at the window occurred soonest in the short
experiments, later in the medium experiments and latest in the long
experiments. In other words, Jaytee's behavior was more closely related to PS's
impending return than to the amount of time that had elapsed since she went
out. If Jaytee had simply gone to the window more and more as time went on,
there should have been little or no difference between the time he spent there
in the long, medium and short experiments in any given period. This can be
tested statistically. (In the following analyses, all the data were included,
with no exclusions of "noisy" experiments.)
Figure 4. The time courses of
Jaytee’s visits to the window during P.S.’s long, medium and short absences.
The horizontal axis shows the series of 10-minute periods (p1, p2, etc.). The
vertical axis shows the average number of seconds that Jaytee spent at the
window in each 10-minute period. Data for all 30 experiments are shown, as well
as data for normal experiments after the exclusion of the seven noisy
experiments. The last period shown on the graph represents the first 10 minutes
of P.S.’s return journey (ret), the point for this is indicated by a filled
circle of square. The bars show standard errors. When PS was returning in the
short experiments in period 8, Jaytee was at the window a significantly higher
proportion of the time than in period 8 of the medium and long duration
experiments (by a factorial analysis of variance, p=0.004). Likewise, Jaytee
spent a significantly higher proportion of the time at the window when Pam was
on the way home in the medium experiments in period 11 than in period 11 of the
long absences, when she would not be returning for more than another hour (p=
0.003).
In a
Randomized Permutation Analysis (RPA), the observed timecourses were tested
against the null hypothesis that Jaytee should have spend about the same amount
of time at the window in each of the 10 minute periods. The probabilities that
the observed pattern of data differed from the null hypothesis by chance were:
Long
experiments p<0 .0008="" br="">
Medium experiments p<0 .01="" br="">
Short experiments p<0 .008="" br="">
Combined p<0 .000003="" span="">
Jaytee's behavior when PS was not returning
In order to study Jaytee's behavior when PS was not coming home, we filmed him
at PS's parents's flat on 10 evenings when PS was either spending the night
away from home, or coming home at least one hour after the filming period had
terminated. Fig. 5 shows the average time he spent at the window in the series
of 10-minute periods between 6:30 and 10:00 PM. In these control observations,
Jaytee made a number of visits to the window for a variety of reasons, as
usual, but he did not go to the window more and more as the evening went on.
Figure 5. Time sent by Jaytee
by the window on evenings when PS was not coming home. The first of the 30-10
minute periods was from 6:30 top 6:40p.m., the last form 9:50 to 10:00p.m. The
figures shown are averages from 10 evenings. The bars show standard errors.
Observations on Jaytee at PS's sister's house
PS sometimes
left Jaytee at her sister's house, and here too he usually went to the window
when she was coming home. PS did not tell her sister when she would be
retrurning, but her sister usually knew when she was on her way because of
Jaytee's behavior.
In this
house, in order to look out of the window Jaytee had to balance himself on the
back of a sofa. Unlike the situtation in PS's parents flat and in her own flat,
Jaytee could not wait by the window comfortably, and rarely stayed for long.
Nevertheless, in a series of 5 videotaped experiments, his general pattern of
response (Fig. 6A) was similar to that in PS's parents' flat (Fig. 3), although
the percentage of time spent at the window was lower, the variability was
greater and differences were not statistically significant.
Figure 6. Percentage of time
spent by the window by Jayteeduring the main period, prereturn and return
periods. The bars show standard errors. (a) In PS's sister's house (average of
5 experiments). (b) Alone in PS's flat (average of 50 experiments).
Observations on Jaytee left on his own
We carried out a pre-planned series of 50 videotaped experiments in which
Jaytee was left by himself in PS's own flat while she went out. The overall
pattern (Fig. 6B) was similar to that in PS's parents' flat (Fig. 3) and her
sister's house (Fig. 6A). The differences were significant statistically
(repeated-measures ANOVA, p<0 .01="" at="" average="" but="" comparing="" flat.="" in="" lower="" main="" of="" p="" paired-sample="" parents="" period="" proportion="" ps="" return="" s="" span="" t="" test="" than="" the="" time="" was="" window="" with="">
A closer
analysis of the data revealed that Jaytee showed two different patterns of
response. In most of the tests (35 out of 50) Jaytee did not go to the window
when PS was on her way home. In fact he made few or no visits to the window
during the entire time she was absent. One reason may be that the view from the
window was largely obscured by a bush, so there was not much scope for watching
activities outside, although it was still possible to see the road on which PS
approached in her car.
By contrast,
in 15 out of 50 experiments (30 percent), Jaytee behaved much as he did at PS's
parents flat and showed his usual anticipatory waiting while PS was preparing
to come home and while she was on her way.
An independent replication
During the course of our research with Jaytee, at our invitation Richard
Wiseman and Matthew Smith carried out four experiments with Jaytee, three at
PS's parents' flat and one at her sister's house. During these experiments,
Wiseman filmed Jaytee while Smith accompanied PS and returned with her at
randomly-selected times in cars unfamiliar to Jaytee (Wiseman, Smith &
Milton, 1998).
In all three
experiments at PS's parents' flat, the pattern of response was very similar to
the pattern we observed, with Jaytee at the window most when PS was returning.
Using the same definition of the main, pre-return and return periods used in
Fig. 1, the average proportion of the time that Jaytee spent at the window was
4 per cent in the main period, 48 per cent in the pre-return period and 78 per
cent in the return period. The differences between the periods were significant
(by repeated measures ANOVA, p=0.02; comparison of the main period with return
period by the paired-sample t test, p=0.03). When the time courses were plotted
following the same method used in our Fig. 2, they showed a very similar
pattern (Fig. 7).
Figure 7. The time courses
form the three experiments conducted by Wiseman and Smith with Jaytee at P.S.’s
parents’ flat. The data are taken form Wiseman, Smith and Milton (1998); the
graphs are plotted in the same way as those in figure 2 and show the total
amount of time that the dog spent at the window in successive 10-minute
periods, defined in relation to the randomly selected time at which P.S. was
told to return home. The final point on each graph, indicated by a filled
circle, represents the first 10 minutes of P.S.’s return journey. Wiseman.
Smith and Milton recorded Jaytee's behavior only during the experimental period
during which PS could have been asked to go home, and have no data on his
behavior during the preceding period, up to 90 minutes long, from the time that
PS left home until the beginning of the experimental period. This is the main difference
between the graphs from Wiseman and Smith's experiments and our own.
In Wiseman
and Smith's experiment at PS's sister's house, the first time Jaytee went to
look out of the window for no apparent reason coincided with PS setting off to
come home.
In spite of
these striking effects, Wiseman, Smith and Milton (1998, 2000) portrayed their
results as a refutation of Jaytee's ability to anticipate PS's returns. They
arrived at this conclusion by the use of narrow and arbitrary criteria for
Jaytee's "signal", based on his going to the window for no apparent
external reason for a brief period (less than a minute in one experiment, and
for at least two minutes in the others). They disregarded the rest of their own
data, and did not plot graphs.
Unfortunately
Wiseman, Smith and Milton based their criteria not on the waiting behavior of
Jaytee that we had already observed and documented on more than 100 occasions
before they carried out their tests (Sheldrake and Smart, 1998), but rather on
a "claim made by the media" about Jaytee's behavior. They showed,
unsurprisingly, that statements on popular television shows are sometimes
oversimplified. Ironically, the way their own skeptical conclusions were
publicized in the media provided several striking examples of misleading claims
(Sheldrake, 1999b, 2000).
Discussion
"Normal" explanations of Jaytee's behaviour
The data presented in this paper imply that Jaytee's waiting by the window when
his owner is coming home cannot be explained in terms of any of the following
hypotheses:
1.
Routine. Jaytee's anticipatory behavior when PS was
coming home occurred at various times in the morning, afternoon and evening and
did not depend on a routine time of return. This was apparent in the series of
30 ordinary homecomings (Figs 3 and 4) as well as in our experiments with
randomly-selected return times (Figs 1 and 2; see also Sheldrake & Smart,
1998). The data from the experiments of Wiseman, Smith and Milton (1998) with
randomly-selected return times replicate and confirm our own findings (Fig. 7).
Moreover, in control observations when PS was not coming home Jaytee did not
start waiting at a particular time (Fig. 5).
2.
Hearing a familiar vehicle. In many experiments,
Jaytee's anticipatory behavior was already apparent in the pre-return periods
(Figs 2, 3, 4, and 6) before PS had actually set off in a vehicle, and hence
before he could have heard any characteristic sounds. When she was actually
traveling home, Jaytee was waiting at the window when the vehicle was at least
7 km away, and in some cases more than 25 km. Although dogs can hear higher
pitches than human beings, their general sensitivity to noise levels is similar
to that of people (Shiu, Munro & Cox, 1997; Munro, Paul & Cox 1997). It
is not possible that Jaytee could have heard the sounds of familiar cars at
such distances against all the background noises of Greater Manchester, and in
a manner independent of the direction of the wind. Moreover, Jaytee also waited
for PS in a similar way when she was traveling in taxis or other unfamiliar
vehicles (Sheldrake & Smart, 1998; Sheldrake, 1999a), an effect replicated
by Wiseman, Smith and Milton (Fig 7).
3.
Picking up clues from people at home. PS did not tell her
parents or her sister when she would be coming home, and often did not know in
advance herself. But perhaps in some of PS's ordinary homecomings, her parents
or her sister might have guessed approximately when she would return and
consciously or unconsciously communicated their expectation to Jaytee. But this
possibility cannot account for Jaytee's behavior in the trials with
randomly-selected return times (Figs 1,2 and 7) nor when he was alone (Fig.
6B).
4.
Selective memory or selective reporting of data. The video recordings
permitted all Jaytee's visits to the window to be recorded, and the data
presented in this paper include all the visits he made, even when these were
obviously related to events going on outside, such as cats passing the window,
or when he was sleeping by the window in the sunlight. The videotapes were
analyzed "blind" by people who did not know the details of the
experiments. Hence there was no scope for selective memory or selective
reporting of data. The data from the experiments conducted with Jaytee by
Wiseman, Smith & Milton (1998) also show the same pattern of behavior by
Jaytee as our own experiments (Fig. 7).
5.
Jaytee going to the window more and more the longer his
owner was absent.
The data in Fig. 4 and the statistical analysis described above show that
Jaytee's visits to the window were not explicable in terms of his going there
more and more the longer PS had been absent. Nor did he go to the window more
and more as time went on in the control experiments (Fig. 5). His waiting by
the window was related to PS's returns, rather than to the length of time she
had been away from home.
The
possibility of telepathy
Jaytee
seemed to be detecting PS's intention to come home in a way that could not be
explained
in terms of any of the "normal" hypotheses considered above. Perhaps
he was responding to her intentions or thoughts telepathically.
The
hypothesis of telepathy would not only agree with Jaytee's waiting behavior
when PS was actually on her way home, but it could help to explain why Jaytee
began to spend more time at the window before she set off. In
"real-life" situations when PS returned home at non-routine times of
her own choosing, Jaytee's anticipations regularly began in the
"pre-return" period, before she started driving home (Figs 3,4 and 6;
see also Sheldrake & Smart, 1998). This pattern of behavior is in good
agreement with the telepathic hypothesis, because prior to getting into a car
and driving, or being driven, PS was forming the intention to go home, and
preparing to do so. If Jaytee was responding telepathically to her intention to
return, he would be expected to show this anticipation before she actually got
into the car.
But Jaytee
also showed signs of anticipation in the experiments when PS returned at
randomly-selected times, before she received the signal to go home (Figs 1 and
2). How could he have anticipated when PS was going to be beeped?
It is
perhaps conceivable that Jaytee was telepathically picking up RS's intention to
beep PS from over 300 km away, but we do not take this possibility very
seriously. On one occasions (on 1 July 1997) the beeping was done not by RS but
by someone neither PS nor Jaytee had met, and Jaytee still responded in advance
(Fig. 2). It is also perhaps conceivable that Jaytee had a precognition of when
PS would be beeped. But this would involve introducing another
"paranormal" hypothesis in addition to the telepathic hypothesis. It
is more economical to consider a possible explanation in terms of telepathy
from PS.
In all the
experiments with randomly-selected return times, PS knew that she would be
beeped to come home within a particular time period. Ideally, her mind would
have been entirely engaged with other concerns until the beep came. But
unavoidably she was sometimes thinking about the signal to go home before it
came, especially if it came towards the end of the period of time in which she
knew she would be beeped. Jaytee might have picked up these anticipatory
thoughts, just as he seemed to respond to a fully-formed intention to go home.
If Jaytee
was indeed responding to PS's expectation that she would soon be receiving the
signal to return, then this anticipatory effect would be expected to show up
more when the beep came towards the end of the period in which she knew she
would be beeped than at the beginning. In four out of six of the trials in
which PS was beeped in the first half of the beep period ("early
beep"), Jaytee did not show any anticipation prior to PS setting off (Fig.
2). By contrast, there were signs of anticipation in all but one of the
"late beep" trials. The exception was a trial in which Jaytee did not
go to the window at all throughout the entire experiment. Thus Jaytee's
anticipation of the beep signaling PS's return may have been related to her own
anticipation of the beep, which tended to be greater the later the signal came.
A similar
anticipation of PS's setting off occurred in the experiments conducted by
Richard Wiseman and Matthew Smith (Fig. 7). Here again, Jaytee's early response
may well have taken place in response to PS's anticipation. While she was with
Smith waiting for him to tell her when to return, she found it impossible not
to think about going home. Smith himself knew when they were going to set off
because the randomly-determined time had been set in advance (Wiseman, Smith
& Milton, 1998) . He could well have communicated his anticipation to PS
unconsciously, for example through an increasing tenseness as the predetermined
time approached. Moreover, in all three experiments, the randomly-selected
return time was in the second half of the experimental period, corresponding to
the "late beeps" in our own experiments (Fig. 2B).
This
increasing anticipation by PS that she would soon be going home as the
experimental period progressed was an unavoidable feature of the experimental
design adopted both by ourselves and by Wiseman, Smith and Milton.
Why did Jaytee sometimes not react to PS's returns?
In all our series of experiments with Jaytee, on some occasions he did not show
his usual anticipatory behavior. In our preliminary series of 100 observations,
he failed to do so on 15 occasions. On some of these occasions he was tired
after long walks; on some he was sick; on others he was distracted by a bitch
on heat in a neighboring apartment (Sheldrake & Smart, 1998). But in a few
cases there was no obvious reason for his failure to react. In our series of 12
experiments with randomly selected return times, he did not go to the window at
all in one experiment (Fig. 2). In the series of 30 ordinary homecomings, he
did not show his anticipatory behavior in 6 experiments.
When Jaytee
was left in PS's flat on his own, his lack of anticipatory behavior was usual
rather than exceptional. On most occasions he did not go to wait for her at the
window or indeed visit the window at all. Nevertheless on 15 out of 50
occasions he showed his usual pattern of anticipation, waiting at the window
when PS was returning. Thus he seemed capable of anticipating PS's returns when
he was on his own, but did not usually do so. Why not? Our guess is that it was
a matter of motivation. His waiting at the window while PS was on her homeward
journey may have been more for the sake of communicating his anticipation to
members of PS's family, as if to tell them she was on her way. When there was
no one to tell, he was less motivated to wait at the window. Nevertheless, he
sometimes did it anyway.
The
difference in his behavior in PS's own flat and in her parents' was a matter of
degree. In both places, he sometimes waited by the window when PS was
returning, and sometimes failed to wait there. In PS's parents' flat the ratio
of occasions on which he waited to those he did not was around 80:20, whereas
when he was alone in PS's own flat it was 30:70.
Evolutionary
implications
The
hypothesis that some dogs, such as Jaytee, can anticipate their owners' arrivals
telepathically obviously needs to be tested further. We have already obtained
comparable results with several other dogs. Similar anticipatory behavior is
said by many animal owners to occur with other domesticated species, especially
cats, parrots and horses (Sheldrake & Smart, 1997; Sheldrake, Lawlor &
Turney, 1998; Brown and Sheldrake, 1998; Sheldrake, 1999a), and there is a need
for experimental research on anticipatory behavior by animals of these species.
It would also be worth investigating whether animals in the wild show seem to
know when members of their group are coming home: for example, do wolf cubs
waiting at their den show signs of anticipation before the return of adults
with food?
Although
parapsychologists and psychical researchers have conducted much research on
person-to-person telepathy (for a review, see Radin, 1997), there has very
little previous research on person-to-animal or animal-to-animal telepathy
(Sheldrake, 1999a). If it turns out that telepathic communication does indeed
occur among non-human animals, then this would imply a biological and
evolutionary origin for person-to-person telepathy, and would enable this
"paranormal" phenomenon to seem more "normal", at least in
the sense that it is biological and has an evolutionary history.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Muriel Smart, the late William Smart and Cathie MacKenzie
for their invaluable cooperation in this research, to Amanda Jacks and Jane
Turney for their analysis of the videotapes, and to Dean Radin for carrying out
the Randomized Permutation Analysis. We thank the Lifebridge Foundation and the
Institute of Noetic Sciences for financial support.
References
Brown, D.J.
& Sheldrake, R. (1998). Perceptive pets: a survey in north-west California.
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