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Dogs Sixth Sense?

M

MartinC

pfm Member
We are new to being dog owners and have a 7 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Out on our morning walk something very strange and interesting occured that I cannot explain.

We were taking a common route that involves a walk up a cul de sac on one side and down the other side of the street. On the way back our dog stopped around 25 yards before a house, sat down and would not move. Eventually I persuaded her to cross the road, she walked a few more yards and again refused to move. I ended up having to carry her to the next road junction perhaps 25 yards past the house she would not walk past, putting her down she again sat and would not move.

At that moment we heard a fire truck siren and the truck arrived and parked outside the house she was avoiding and the EMT's (in the US fire trucks carry emergency medical technicians and are the first to arrive before ambulances) proceeded to go into the house being let in by an older lady.

At that point our dog got up and we walked home, however once home she moped around for the entire morning.

I don't know what had occurred at the house in question but it was remarkable to me that our dog sensed something that spooked her. There are of course stories of dogs 'sixth sense', probably more related to their inherently sensitive ability to smell, such that they can detect things we cannot. Certainly in this case she wasn't picking up any clues from my behavior as there was nothing untoward that I perceived and we had walked past that house dozens of times before with no issues.

Anyone else had similar instances with their dogs?
 
MartinC said:
We are new to being dog owners and have a 7 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Out on our morning walk something very strange and interesting occured that I cannot explain.

We were taking a common route that involves a walk up a cul de sac on one side and down the other side of the street. On the way back our dog stopped around 25 yards before a house, sat down and would not move. Eventually I persuaded her to cross the road, she walked a few more yards and again refused to move. I ended up having to carry her to the next road junction perhaps 25 yards past the house she would not walk past, putting her down she again sat and would not move.

At that moment we heard a fire truck siren and the truck arrived and parked outside the house she was avoiding and the EMT's (in the US fire trucks carry emergency medical technicians and are the first to arrive before ambulances) proceeded to go into the house being let in by an older lady.

At that point our dog got up and we walked home, however once home she moped around for the entire morning.

I don't know what had occurred at the house in question but it was remarkable to me that our dog sensed something that spooked her. There are of course stories of dogs 'sixth sense', probably more related to their inherently sensitive ability to smell, such that they can detect things we cannot. Certainly in this case she wasn't picking up any clues from my behavior as there was nothing untoward that I perceived and we had walked past that house dozens of times before with no issues.

Anyone else had similar instances with their dogs?
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There’s lots of evidence that animals are much more sensitive to earth tremors than humans and will leg it long before the serious action kicks off, same with fire etc.
Then theres the dogs who know when their owner is coming home, even when the owner breaks the routine the dog has learned and instead comes home at a random time. It fascinating.
My first reaction to your story was was there a fire at the house and the dog smelled smoke?
 
No smoke, and the only activity from the fire truck crew were the medical techs going in as far as I saw. I don't really want to pry into someone else's life, but we have a friend living close by so will see if they know what the issue was.
 
Our two cats would know when I was coming home from work. They would jump down from their usual perch atop the sofa and sit by the front door almost as soon as I turned into our road and long before Mrs H had heard my footsteps.
 
My dog is unbelievable at this sort of stuff I first noticed it when he was about six months old, we were taking him to stay with a vet student who was going to look after him, he had previously stayed with her for two weeks when he was about four months old.

My wife and me and the dog were in the car about a mile away, on a seriously busy road with loads of traffic, from the girl's home and he alerted, I said to my wife at the time that he knows exactly where we're going and she told me not to be ridiculous but he did know and he does stuff like that all of the time, he's six now, he regularly alerts before someone comes to the house and I mean about five minutes beforehand, it's uncanny.

We joke about it now by saying something like 'oh that will be the courier leaving the depot X miles away' and sure enough there will be a delivery van arrive about five minutes later, he alerts a good two or three minutes before the postman comes up the drive.

Last night I took him out for his nightly walk and forgot to take poop bags with me so I started to look for one on the ground (there's usually loads lying about) anyway I found one but it was all ripped so put it back where I found it then at the end of the walk he pointed a green bag in the grass out to me with his nose and then ran into the woods.

He obviously watched me lift the ripped bag, smelt it when I put it back then he alerted when he smelt the one he pointed out to me but this was a good mile away from the where I found the ripped bag.
 
The dog smelt something. Maybe someone had died or been taken ill, generating the call. I remember a couple of years ago I was looking after a friend's dog for the weekend. I had other friends staying. One of them went out in the car. The dog was a bit agitated as she left but settled down. An hour or two later the dog started barking and went to the door. Nobody there. 5 minutes later my friend arrived, she had stopped off at the shop 200 yards away in a neighbouring street. I'm convinced that the dog heard and or smelt her arriving at the shops and knew she was returning, so went to the door fully 5 minutes before she actually arrived.
 
Many animals have far better sense of smell and far better hearing than those that own them. They also can recognise audible or visual clues through repetition. That probably explains every anecdote.
 
TheDecameron said:
Then theres the dogs who know when their owner is coming home, even when the owner breaks the routine the dog has learned and instead comes home at a random time. It fascinating.
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My cats do this.

There are stories of dogs who can sense disease in humans, such as cancer.
 
I've always been around dogs and they are incredible at perceiving all the aforementioned and more.

One particular hearing based trait is that they always know when it's a family member arriving home by any means, including vehicles. We live in an area where many folk have the same model scooter as myself and the sons girlfriend. Sir pooch will ignore all other bike arrivals except the two mentioned. From 100 metres away he knows, up and wagging in anticipation.
On a change of vehicle he still knows after only a couple of arrivals on the different scoot, super-sensed compared to us!
 
Not sure if I would call what our Cavapoo did is a sixth sense but it was remarkable.

We’d owned her for a couple of years during which she was always ill at ease until I bought an electric piano which she seemed very interested in. One day about a year ago when I was practicing she jumped onto the stool beside me and started hitting the keys with her paws. On witnessing the phenomenon my piano teacher somehow managed to get her to hit the keys in tune and on time.

She’s quite accomplished now and can knock out Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto with consummate ease - whoever said you can’t teach a dog to play the piano was obviously talking out of their hoop.
 
Sean K said:
I have a four month old deerhound pup with a reliable sense of the least suitable and most expensive to replace items to chew
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Let me guess, it also eats only the finest, organically grown, single variety dog food. Oh, and sheep droppings.
 
Sheep droppings, of which our labrador is a connoisseur, imbue a dog's poo with a particularly nasty colour and consistency. It isn't until you take a walk with a labrador that you realise how much of the World is edible...

Anyone who's owned a dog for a significant length of time will recognise just how sensitive they are to all sorts of things. They quickly pick up if someone's upset. Or if someone comes within two paces of a food source.
 
Spraggons Den said:
Not sure if I would call what our Cavapoo did is a sixth sense but it was remarkable.

We’d owned her for a couple of years during which she was always ill at ease until I bought an electric piano which she seemed very interested in. One day about a year ago when I was practicing she jumped onto the stool beside me and started hitting the keys with her paws. On witnessing the phenomenon my piano teacher somehow managed to get her to hit the keys in tune and on time.

She’s quite accomplished now and can knock out Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto with consummate ease - whoever said you can’t teach a dog to play the piano was obviously talking out of their hoop.
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My dog is currently reading Homer in the original Greek. When she’s done that she has to put the last few touches to her Grand Unifying Theory then she’ll finish her double slit experiment and have Shrodinger’s cat for lunch
 
Yank said:
My cats do this.

There are stories of dogs who can sense disease in humans, such as cancer.
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There's dogs who can smell blood sugar levels and who alert thier owners who are diabetic and are in danger of going into a diabetic coma and of course there's dogs who can smell coronavirus who have been used in a test to see if they can be used in airports and large scale venues etc.

Their sense of smell is amazing.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-finally-know-how-dogs-sniff-out-diabetes

While this change would be too subtle for us humans to smell, dogs have the ability to detect odours at concentrations of around one part per trillion, which is like the equivalent of us detecting a teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic sized swimming pools, as George Dvorsky explains for Gizmodo.

The team still isn't sure why the body produces more isoprene as blood sugar levels drop - they suspect it might be a byproduct of cholesterol - and more investigation is now needed to confirm their results.
 
I only recently found out why dogs do the circling around thing before they sit down to sleep....

Also why they REALLY go crazy at the postman arriving at your door ...
 
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