13/05/2022
TODAY OUR BREED EXPERT Carol Price is looking at the superior sensory abilities of animals - and Border collies in particular:
‘SIXTH’ SENSES - CAN YOUR DOG REALLY READ YOUR MIND?
As a behaviourist I have long been fascinated by the higher sensory/cognitive abilities – or ‘sixth’ senses - possessed by animals. At a level we, as humans, may well have lost ourselves on our journey to the top of the evolutionary food chain, where we have few natural predators left and most of the basic needs – like water, food and shelter - our ancestors had to hunt and search for, using purely their own ingenuity and initiative, are now delivered to us without such effort.
The migratory patterns of animals – in terms of how they know when to migrate, and where, without the benefit of any more advanced navigational aids, have long intrigued us. Similarly in dogs – and Border collies in particular – I have always got the feeling that their sensory powers remain more primitive, as well as far more acute, than our own. And only by trying to better tune into the more heightened sensory world they live in, compared to ourselves, can we really begin to better understand them as a breed.
HEIGHTENED SENSES AND TELEPATHY
We already know that a dog’s senses of smell and hearing are far more powerful than our own, and such heightened senses will also greatly shape the way any dog interprets or reacts to their surrounding world. They may perceive threat, for example, from so many different bits of sensory information in their environment that remain relatively ‘invisible’ to us.
However, it is the Border collie’s cognitive, as well as sensory, awareness, that truly intrigues me. Everyone who has owned a Border collie will be aware of that feeling that their dog “always knows what they are going to do next” or “can actually read my mind”. But is this really true?
In his fascinating book, ‘Dogs that know when their owners are coming home – and other unexplained powers of animals’, biologist Rupert Sheldrake outlined some remarkable studies into telepathic abilities in dogs. From one dog who could tell the exact time when his owner was leaving work, no matter how different the times she left, and would wait by the door for her return from that moment onwards, to dogs who could tell when their owners were going to take them for a walk, even when the owners were in a different room to them. The owners were asked at random times to make a decision to take their dog for a walk, then actually do so five minutes later. But when their dogs in another room were filmed, it was clear they became excited right from the moment their owner decided to take them for a walk, when they had not been so before that.
NOTHING IS HIDDEN
Another thing all owners soon learn about Border collies is that nothing about the way you think or feel, at any given time, remains hidden from them. It is like all our different emotional states are immediately readable to them, as waves of energy rippling out from our bodies at different levels of intensity. So if you are feeling stressed or anxious, they will know it and feel it. Similarly if you are in a more hostile or agitated frame of mind. If you have ever tried to train your dog, or get him/her to do something for you while you are in one of these more negative emotional settings, and your dog ‘flattens’, shuts down or otherwise seems reluctant to respond, this is why.
Sheldrake found that the more intense, and enduring, the bond was between owner and dog the more likely it was that these kinds of heightened telepathic connection would occur. And I am sure many of us are aware of that sort of bond with our dogs, built up over time; special, magical but also quite inexplicable to others.
So if you think your dog can read your mind, the chances you are right sometimes, even if it is for reasons that cannot yet be entirely explained by science.
Meanwhile everything you need to know about ‘sixth’ senses and sensory abilities in Border collies, plus the whole psychology and evolution of the breed, appears in BOOK ONE of my BREED APART trilogy, SECRETS OF THE WORKING MIND: https://performancedog.co.uk/shop/books-and-dvds/authors/carol-price/border-collies-a-breed-apart-secrets-of-the-working-mind/
And in the USA: https://www.dogwise.com/ #
All text @ Carol Price 2022
