Evidence Of Sixth Sense

[Saint Therese]

[url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242751/Evidence-dogs-sixth-sense-K9-bolts-earthquake-strikes-American-office-block.html"]article[/url]

Be sure and watch the video! Notice that the dog looks at the ground a split second before it makes a run for it.

[Ash Wednesday]

I don't think there's anything of a mystical sixth sense about it. I suspect that many animals have extra physical sensitivity to the beginnings of tremors before most humans actually take note of it. I grew up in the northwest where we've had earthquakes and sometimes horses would jump around and appear be spooked in the pastures for no reason at all, and it turned out it was because of small tremors and earthquakes that register slightly on the Richter scale but the average person does not notice it.

[CatherineM]

My last basset hound could smell when people were real sick. With cancer patients, he would get sad and act afraid. He would try to crawl underneath my wheelchair. I suspect it was his sense of smell, not esp. I had a friend say that if he ever acted like that around him, he was going straight to the doctor.

[Lounge Daddy]

Interesting stuff! I remember when there was news reports about birds going crazy, and an incredible increase in bats biting people months before a hurricane arrived somewhere that doesn't get hurricanes. The animals knew something was terrible abnormal about the weather before it actually evidenced in the weather, and they freaked out.

[mcts]

I've also seen a thing where a dog knew when it's owner was going to have a seizure. It was pretty crazy. The dog was able to warn her in advance so that she could get down on the floor and be prepared.

[Archaeology cat]

I'd agree with Ash, that it isn't a 6th sense, but that they have heightened senses. My cat immediately knows when I'm pregnant (I joke that I'm going to hire him out as an early pregnancy test, because he could tell a few days before I got a positive ). I don't think that's a sixth sense, but that he can smell the hormonal changes long before people would be able to detect that.

[Ash Wednesday]

Yeah, it's not to say that I haven't heard some unusual stories about animals not related to this. But as far as earthquakes and the dog goes, that's natural.

I particularly found the story about Oscar the Cat interesting.
[url="http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN2531239020070725"]Meow[/url]

[Winchester]

I can tell if something tastes good just by eating it!

[rhetoricfemme]

[quote name='mcts' date='13 January 2010 - 01:42 PM' timestamp='1263408167' post='2036288']
I've also seen a thing where a dog knew when it's owner was going to have a seizure. It was pretty crazy. The dog was able to warn her in advance so that she could get down on the floor and be prepared.
[/quote]
My dog did that. My sister has seizures quite often, and one of our two American Eskimo dogs would become very protective of her in the hours leading up to a major seizure. She'd sit right at her feet, or if her door was closed she'd sit right outside my sister's bedroom. Our other Eskie was also prone to having seizures herself. It got to be that my sister's seizures were in sync with our dog's seizures. At that point, our protective Eskie had her work cut out for her and you could tell by the look on her face that she was at a loss.

Edited January 13, 2010 by rhetoricfemme

[picchick]

Why can't it be considered a sixth sense? I think there is just a knowing too. There are some nurses I know who will stand at the doorway of a patient's room and just be like, "Something isn't right." Everything will be fine with the patient but they have this sense that something is out of place. Sure enough, the patient's condition will change drastically. There is also just a way to tell something wrong in the air. Has no one else felt this?

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='picchick' date='13 January 2010 - 05:23 PM' timestamp='1263417815' post='2036402']
Why can't it be considered a sixth sense? I think there is just a knowing too. There are some nurses I know who will stand at the doorway of a patient's room and just be like, "Something isn't right." Everything will be fine with the patient but they have this sense that something is out of place. Sure enough, the patient's condition will change drastically. There is also just a way to tell something wrong in the air. Has no one else felt this?
[/quote]
Do you think its an extra sense [ making it #6] or that the other 5 are working especially well at that particular moment?

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote name='picchick' date='13 January 2010 - 04:23 PM' timestamp='1263417815' post='2036402']
Why can't it be considered a sixth sense? I think there is just a knowing too. There are some nurses I know who will stand at the doorway of a patient's room and just be like, "Something isn't right." Everything will be fine with the patient but they have this sense that something is out of place. Sure enough, the patient's condition will change drastically. There is also just a way to tell something wrong in the air. Has no one else felt this?
[/quote]

I do believe in that, I just don't really see it in this particular case. I suppose if someone wants to consider the possibility of it here, that is fine, but I disagree with the general sensationalism of the article proclaiming "evidence" of it and not even taking any natural explanation into consideration. They're probably just coming up with an interesting article so it's not a big deal. In this case I would be skeptical of it because the dog seems more or less at ease to me and only jumps up and acts surprised only a couple of seconds before everyone else flees.

Now if the doggie was pacing around and trying to warn the occupants minutes or even hours before the fact, that would be very interesting indeed. I know there are many stories of animals doing such things in other dangerous situations.

Edited January 13, 2010 by Ash Wednesday

[raptor13]

i read somewhere that humans have up to 37 senses, depending on how you define sense (which scientists are still debating)

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='raptor13' date='13 January 2010 - 09:02 PM' timestamp='1263434553' post='2036603']
i read somewhere that humans have up to 37 senses, depending on how you define sense (which scientists are still debating)
[/quote]

I know some people who have none at all. ... depending on how you define sense, of course.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='raptor13' date='13 January 2010 - 09:02 PM' timestamp='1263434553' post='2036603']
i read somewhere that humans have up to 37 senses, depending on how you define sense (which scientists are still debating)
[/quote]
I know for a fact that I'm blind, deaf, and/or dumb in no fewer than 32 of those senses.