A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner is Returning: Preliminary Investigations
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Plain English Summary
Meet Jaytee, a terrier who became the most studied case in animal telepathy research. His owner Pamela Smart noticed he'd wait by the window when she headed home — so Sheldrake tested it over 96 trips. Jaytee's waiting matched when Pamela set off, regardless of distance. Controlled experiments using random return times ruled out routine and family cues. Remarkably, Jaytee reacted within seconds of Pamela simply deciding to leave. This founding paper sparked a famous clash with skeptic Wiseman, whose experiments reached different conclusions largely over how to score the dog's behavior.
Research Notes
The founding paper in the Jaytee case, the most intensively studied apparent animal-telepathy instance in parapsychology. Precedes the 2000 videotaped follow-up that clashed with Wiseman et al.'s concurrent experiments—a landmark dispute over scoring criteria. Published in JSPR 62, 220-232 (1998).
Preliminary investigations of Jaytee, a mongrel terrier who reportedly knew when his owner Pamela Smart was returning home, conducted over 96 excursions (May 1994–February 1995). Jaytee's window-waiting reaction time correlated significantly with the time PS set off homeward (F=43.3, p<0.0001), independent of travel distance. Three controlled experiments with randomly determined return times—including one filmed synchronously by Austrian television—showed Jaytee reacting within seconds of PS deciding to leave, ruling out routine, vehicle recognition, and parental expectations. The authors propose morphic-field or telepathic causation.
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📋 Cite this paper
Sheldrake, Rupert, Smart, Pamela (1998). A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner is Returning: Preliminary Investigations. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
@article{sheldrake_smart_1998_dog_preliminary,
title = {A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner is Returning: Preliminary Investigations},
author = {Sheldrake, Rupert and Smart, Pamela},
year = {1998},
journal = {Journal of the Society for Psychical Research},
}