Perceptive Pets: A Survey in North-West California
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Ever feel like your dog knows you're coming home before you even turn the corner? You're not alone. This phone survey of 200 California households found that nearly half of dog owners said their pets seemed to anticipate family members' arrivals, and a whopping 65% believed their dog knew when they were about to leave — even before grabbing keys or a coat. Cat owners reported similar things, just less often (cats gonna cat). Strikingly, these numbers almost perfectly matched a similar survey done in England, suggesting this isn't just an American quirk. Pet owners who reported these experiences were also more likely to say they'd had psychic experiences themselves. The study laid groundwork for later videotaped experiments testing whether dogs really do react before their owners head home.
Research Notes
Baseline survey establishing prevalence of pet-telepathy reports in a randomly-selected US population, complementing the UK Ramsbottom survey. Key precursor to Sheldrake's experimental dog-return videotaping program. Speaks to Controversy #12 (animal telepathy).
A telephone survey of 200 randomly-selected households in Santa Cruz County, California examined the prevalence of reportedly psychic abilities in pets. Of 132 pet-owning households, 45% of dog owners and 31% of cat owners reported their pets anticipated family member arrivals. Sixty-five percent of dog owners agreed their pet knew when they were going out before physical signs (p < 0.001 vs. 37% of cat owners). Forty-two percent of dog owners and 34% of cat owners believed their pet was sometimes telepathic. Pet owners were significantly more likely to report their own psychic experiences (64% vs. 40%, p = 0.005). Results closely replicated a prior survey in Ramsbottom, England, suggesting cross-cultural consistency.
Related Papers
Same Research Program
- The Anticipation of Telephone Calls: A Survey in California — Brown, David Jay (2001)
- A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner Is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observations — Sheldrake, Rupert (2000)
- Testing a Language-Using Parrot for Telepathy — Sheldrake, Rupert (2003)
- Testing a Return-Anticipating Dog, Kane — Sheldrake, Rupert (2000)
Also by these authors
More in Telepathy
Telecommunication Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis
Rethinking Communication and Consciousness: Lessons from The Telepathy Tapes Podcast
Who's Calling? Evaluating the Accuracy of Guessing Who Is on the Phone
A Comparison of Four New Automated Telephone Telepathy Tests
Detecting Telepathy: A Meta-Analysis for Extrasensory Perception Experiments in Last 20 Years
📋 Cite this paper
Brown, David Jay, Sheldrake, Rupert (1998). Perceptive Pets: A Survey in North-West California. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
@article{brown_sheldrake_1998_perceptive_pets,
title = {Perceptive Pets: A Survey in North-West California},
author = {Brown, David Jay and Sheldrake, Rupert},
year = {1998},
journal = {Journal of the Society for Psychical Research},
}