Do Dogs Have a Sixth Sense

Pets are usually the best, particularly dogs. They are your companion whenever you need a friend, they can make you smile the moment you walk in the door, and they cuddle whenever you are feeling lonely. This article will discuss in detail if dogs have sexth sense or not.

Just like human beings, dogs have five basic senses, which are sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell. However, the senses of a dog are more heightened than those of human beings.

A dog’s sight is keener and can detect things better when it’s dark. According to Animal Planet, the eyes of a dog can sense incredibly delicate movements that a human being cannot.

Their sense of smell is also 10,000 times better. Human beings win the contest only for taste because they have approximately 9,000 taste buds when compared with 1,700 for canines.

When it comes to the sense of touch, however, dogs are on the same level with human beings. They utilize their sense of touch as one of the methods to communicate with each other and with humans as well.

The hearing sense of a dog is approximately similar to that of a human’s, especially when it comes to quality and distance. However, dogs can pick up pretty higher frequencies than humans, and at four times more the distance of a human being with normal hearing.

But for all of the great things about pets, they usually have an incredibly creepy side: at times it seems like they possess a paranormal sense that human beings don’t have and that is what we will be discussing in this article. We are talking about a dog’s sixth sense and how they use it at all times.

What is the sixth sense?

A sixth sense refers to the power to discern a certain situation or the true nature of an individual, according to Roget’s Thesaurus. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms also describes the sixth sense as a keen intuition, which is a term that refers to an extra sense to the five physical senses that humans and animals have.

Dr. Vint Varga states that animals are incredibly sensitive and explains that sensitivity is generally a state of being aware and also responsive to the world and everything around us and ourselves as well.

To do that, you must draw from your senses, which is what you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, taste, smell, and touch, and even feel in your gut. However, the senses of humans do not paint the entire picture, but only a fragment of everything that exists.

According to research, many scientists believe that all living creatures possess a sixth sense, animals and humans included. Some people refer to the sixth feeling as a “gut” feeling. Some people experience the gut feeling like just an overall knowledge.

However, the only difference between a human’s sixth sense and a dog’s sixth sense is in trusting what is received.

According to Marti Miller, a pet psychologist, both dogs and humans have a sixth sense, but human beings deny or judge what they are feeling. While a human mind starts analyzing what is going on, a dog does not do that.

Dogs do not judge what is happening in the environment. They are more open to believing how it feels, never doubting where it comes from or what it is. Therefore, dogs act upon all those feelings accordingly.

They will, at times, move away from a particular situation that does not feel right. At times they will bark at the individual who is giving out negative energy. In general, they trust and believe what they feel, whereas humans sometimes ignore their gut feelings.

Ways that show that a dog has a sixth sense

Dogs are popularly known for their intelligence and incomparable loyalty towards all their masters. A dog is a special presence in all the lives of the people they touch closely. But their ability to sense certain events before they happen is what makes them even more special.

Evidence shows that dogs are incredibly intuitive and can tell when you are sad or happy by reading your body language and examining your voice and might even empathize with you or respond accordingly. Let us take a look at what dogs can accurately sense beforehand.

1. Dogs can detect illnesses and diseases in human beings

Dogs can easily detect some health conditions in humans. Some of the illnesses they can sense include:

a) Cancer

According to Animal Planet, a dog’s high sense of smell is usually credited with its ability to detect some types of cancers in human beings. Yes, your pooch can sniff out some cancer utilizing its tiny nose.

Research reveals that cancer cells emit a distinct odor since they discharge different metabolic wastes in comparison to healthy cells inside a human body. Dogs can smell this mild smell given out by the cancer cells, even when the illness is at an incredibly initial stage.

b) A drop in blood sugar levels

A dog can also sense an irregular fall in your blood sugar level that happens in cases of type-1 diabetes. Several researchers from Cambridge University have discovered that a drop in blood sugar is connected to a rise in isoprene, which is a natural chemical that humans release through breathing.

However, it’s still not fully known if a dog can sense this chemical during the process of detecting this illness. Probably some other molecules are also at play and are sensed by the dog.

c) Pregnancy and labor

If a lady conceives a baby, her body usually undergoes some physiological changes. In general, there is a significant difference in the said person’s body appearance and odor. The pregnant woman experiences some mood swings, and there is also a change in her body language, and pooch can easily understand all these transformations.

Nevertheless, scientific research is still in progress to provide solid evidence to support the ability of a dog to sense pregnancy. It is also fascinating to note that some cases have been reported many times where dogs were effectively able to predict the onset of the labor pains.

In many of these cases, people noted that the dogs started following pregnant women everywhere twenty-four hours before the arrival of labor pains.

d) Seizure attacks

There are also some service dogs that can assist individuals prone to seizures. These dogs are typically trained to be alert to minor shifts in the individual’s health, such as dilated pupils and body smells. These things will warn the dogs of looming seizure attacks.

Paw Culture states that since dogs can sense storms, low insulin levels, labor pains, cancer, bombs, truffles, drugs, it makes sense that they can also smell other energies humans are not aware of.

2. Dogs can hear things humans can’t

A dog can hear high pitched noises than humans, and they can also hear at pretty far distances than human beings. According to Paw Culture, that could be what makes a dog more likely to hear a parallel universe or some footprints of a ghost. It’s possible that dogs only hear noises humans can’t hear, but it is also possible that they hear paranormal activity.

Your pooch can also hear the roar of thunder before it lashes out in its full fury. A dog can hear the sounds and vibrations of thunder much before humans because they are gifted with a great sense of hearing that’s twenty times more powerful when compared to that of humans.

In addition to the scent of rains in the air, your canine friend can also smell chemicals accumulated in the air; that humans cannot even process.

3. Dogs can feel a presence humans cannot see

If you own a dog, you may notice that there are particular spots or places they are mysteriously afraid of, or there is one area they always act weird in, which is very strange.

At times they can act that way if something traumatic happened to them in that place, but it is also possible that they are sensing a certain force that you cannot sense. There are many accounts of canines doing this.

Dogs can feel a presence

4. Dogs might at times see things humans cannot

The sense of sight in a dog is also incredibly sharper than a human being’s, so again, they might be just seeing things people don’t notice, but it can also be something strange or spooky.

For instance, Brandy Stark, who heads a paranormal investigation team known as SPIRITS of St. Petersburg, narrated to Paw Culture a funny story about taking with them two dogs she had rescued earlier on an investigation trail where they noticed unusual activity.

The group stopped and checked at a certain place on the wall, and later discovered that the first owner, who many people thought was haunting the property, owned a hidden office in that very spot.

5. Dogs can sometimes sense natural disasters

Domestic and wild animals, including dogs, can easily sense impending disasters. Some of the natural disasters they can sense include:

a) Stormy weather and thunder

Whenever a storm or thunder is approaching your pooch will jump on your lap for cover or might begin barking loudly in an attempt to warn other members of the pack towards potential danger.

If human beings can pick up such signs every time, then you can be well prepared to handle bad weather conditions. A climatic change is always preceded by a drop in the barometric pressure and a change in the static electric fields that a dog can easily pick.

b) Earthquakes

Seismologists normally believe that dogs can predict earthquakes since it can feel the vibrations of the earth easily through their paws.

Other groups of scientists maintain that because of the highly sensitive hearing, most dogs can hear when some rocks are breaking under the earth. Apart from canines, other animals have also been seen to display odd behaviors before an earthquake.

According to Animal Planet, domestic and wild animals, including dogs, were able to sense the approaching Indian Ocean tsunami back in 2004. They displayed their distress with vocal warnings and behavior changes, and either refused to go outside or ran for cover.

Some scientists believe that the animals could sense some vibrational changes on land from the looming earthquakes before human beings could and that probably happens all the time.

dogs in earthquakes

Conclusion

As we have seen a dog can sense many things humans can’t because they are more sensitive to changes in the atmosphere and emotions. They can also be sensitive to negative energy or something that feels off.

Dogs may also be more sensitive to a lot of sub-conscious things. That can range from illnesses to natural disasters to human beings to ghosts. There are many stories about canines sensing or seeing something eerie, and experts have no explanation yet for what is going on.

However, dogs are pretty fabulous in a lot of ways. Follow its signs carefully, and you might be able to prevent an approaching dangerous situation or mishap. Dogs can also warn you towards strangers or people with wrong motives by the look on their faces and reading their body language.

If your pooch displays a high level of dislike for a particular person, that can be a signal to stay away from that individual. Military dogs also deserve a pretty special mention since they’re effectively trained to sense explosives, weapons, and drugs, as well as to track and also attack enemies.

References

  1. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gbZXYnE2KlgC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Dogs+Have+a+Sixth+Sense&ots=kOROI6DyQf&sig=ulC8EfbbT6tKkgMd6506QAzescM
  2. https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/inlawrev/article/download/18090/18182
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