Those Amazing Psychic Pets

The biologist Rupert Sheldrake has really pushed the envelope with what is considered mainstream science. I enjoy folks who dare to think outside the box and who aren't afraid to go against the grain. One example is his studies of the alleged psychic ability of pets, as in his book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. I've had some amazing pets in my time - but I never thought we communicated telepathically. Looking back, however, I wonder if my pet Chihuahuas I had as a kid didn't come close to this.

I'm fascinated with the many, many cases of animals who travel great distances in order to be reunited with their owners. One such story was featured on ABC News a year and a half ago. Here is a link to their coverage of Bucky - a three-year-old black Labrador who traveled all the way from Virginia (where his owner had left him with his father when he moved his family to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Then there was Bobbie the Wonder Dog (who died in 1927). You can read his very interesting story at the Oregon Encyclopedia website. This scotch collie-mix traveled over two thousand miles (in the winter, no less). He was separated from his family during a trip to Indiana. But that wasn't to be the end. Half a year later Bobbie managed to trek back to his family's home in Oregon, in pitiable shape and with paws worn to the bone; but alive and happy to be home. Bobbie played himself in the movie The Call of the West, as well being featured in Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Lest you think I'm partial to dogs, let me point to the story of Sam the Siamese cat, who traveled 1,400 miles after his owner had surrendered him to the Tucson Humane Society when she moved to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Four years later Sam turned up just doors away from where his owner had moved. He was identified by certain features (such a head scars) and was "thin and malnourished."

It is my feeling that animals (and we humans are animals as well) are naturally able to connect in certain ways with the cosmos and exhibit something that has been called a sixth-sense. I guess it's plain ol' animal instinct newly appreciated.

Perhaps the lower animals are sometimes more in tune with this connection than we higher animals. After all, we have allowed ourselves to become quite distanced from nature. We think we a pretty smart. Yet in many ways they seem our superiors (maybe that is why the ancients worshiped gods with animalistic features).