(GLWR(GLWRUU -R 6ZDEH 1/ $VVRFLDWH (GLWRU 3HQQ\ %HUQVWHLQ 86$ &RQWHQWV $$UUWLWLFFOHVOHV 55HFHLYHHFHLYHGG The Unexplained Powers of Animals Rupert Sheldrake ‘In it for the Animals’: Animal Welfare, Moral Certainty and Disagreements Nicola Taylor Cultural Studies as a Means for Elucidating the Human- Animal Relationship in Zoos Randy Malamud $$QWKUR]QWKUR]RRRORJLFRORJLFDDOO99LVLRQLVLRQVV An interview with Bernard Rollin on his vision of the human-animal relationship Jo Swabe &HQWUHV RI 55HHVHDUFVHDUFKK The Anthrozoology Institute, UK %RR%RRNNVVHWFHWF Reviews of Sanders’ Understanding Dogs; Beyond Violence: The Human-Animal Connection PYSETA video Plus, info on books Hot off the Presses and News from the Net *UHHWLQJV IURIURPP00HHHWHWLLQQJV 1999 Delta Society Annual Conference 0HHWLQJV RI 'LVWLQF'LVWLQFWWLRQLRQ 22IIIILFLFLLDODO ,6$= %XVLQH%XVLQHVVVV KWWSZZZVRWRQDFXNaD]LLVD]KWP ,6$=1HZVOHWWHU -XO\ 1XPEHU $$UWLFOUWLFOHHVV 5HFH5HFHLLYHGYHG THE UNEXPLAINED POWERS OF ANIMALS Rupert Sheldrake 20 Willow Road, London NW3 1TJ, UK [email protected] www.sheldrake.org For many years animal trainers, pet owners hundreds of animal trainers, shepherds, blind and naturalists have reported various kinds of people with guide dogs, veterinarians and pet perceptiveness in animals that suggest the owners, I have been investigating some of existence of psychic powers. Surprisingly these unexplained powers of animals. There little research has been done on these are three major categories of seemingly phenomena. Biologists have been inhibited mysterious perceptiveness: namely telepathy, by the taboo against "the paranormal", and the sense of direction and premonition. psychical researchers and parapsychologists have with few exceptions confined their Animal telepathy attention to human beings. The commonest kinds of seemingly telepathic According to recent random household response are the anticipation by dogs and cats surveys in England and the United States, of their owners coming home; the many pet owners believe their animals are anticipation of owners going away; the sometimes telepathic with them. An average anticipation of being fed; cats disappearing of 48 per cent of dog owners and 33 per cent when their owners intend to take them to the of cat owners said that their pets responded to vet; dogs knowing when their owners are their thoughts or silent commands. Many planning to take them for a walk; and animals horse trainers and riders believe that their that get excited when their owner is on the horse can pick up their intentions telephone, even before the telephone has been telepathically. answered. Some companion animals even seem able to As skeptics rightly point out, some of these tell when a particular person is on the responses could be explained in terms of telephone before the receiver has been picked routine expectations, subtle sensory cues, up. For example, when the telephone rings in chance coincidence and selective memory, or the household of a noted professor at the put down to the imaginations of doting pet University of California at Berkeley, his wife owners. These are reasonable hypotheses, knows when her husband is on the other end but they should not be accepted in the of the line because Whiskins, their silver absence of any evidence. To test these tabby cat, rushes to the telephone and paws at possibilities, it is necessary to do the receiver. "Many times he succeeds in experiments. taking it off the hook and makes appreciative miaows that are clearly audible to my I and my colleagues have concentrated on the husband at the other end", she says. "If phenomenon of dogs that know when their someone else telephones, Whiskins takes no owners are coming home. Many pet owners notice." The cat responds even when he have observed that their animals seem to telephones home from field trips in Africa or anticipate the arrival of a member of the South America. household, often 10 minutes or more in advance. The pets typically wait at a door, For the last five years, with the help of window or gate. In random household 1R -XO\ ,6$= surveys in Britain and America, an average though no one at home knew when she would of 51 per cent of dog owners and 30 per cent be coming. The odds against this being a of cat owners said they had noticed such chance effect were more than 100,000 to one. anticipatory behaviour. Jaytee behaved in a very similar way when he The dog I have investigated in most detail is was tested repeatedly by skeptics anxious to a terrier called Jaytee, who belongs to Pam debunk his abilities. Smart, in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester. The evidence indicates that Jaytee was Pam adopted Jaytee from Manchester Dogs' reacting to Pam's intention to come home Home in 1989 when he was still a puppy, and even when she was many miles away. soon formed a close bond with him. Telepathy seems the only hypothesis that can In 1991, when Pam was working as a account for the facts. secretary at a school in Manchester, she left Other kinds of animal telepathy can also be Jaytee with her parents, who noticed that the investigated experimentally, for example the dog went to the French window almost every apparent ability of dogs to know when they weekday at about 4.30 pm, around the time are going to be taken for walks. In these she set off, and waited there until she arrived experiments the dogs are kept in a separate some 45 minutes later. She worked routine room or outbuilding and videotaped office hours, so the family assumed that continuously. Meanwhile their owner, at a Jaytee's behaviour depended on some kind of randomly selected time, thinks about taking time sense. them for a walk and then five minutes later Pam was made redundant in 1993 and was does so. Our experiments have shown dogs subsequently unemployed, no longer tied to exhibiting obvious excitement when their any regular pattern of activity. Her parents owner is thinking about taking them out, did not usually know when she would be although they could not have known this by coming home, but Jaytee still anticipated her normal sensory means. They did not manifest return. such excitement at other times. In 1994 Pam read an article about my There is much potential for further research research and volunteered to take part. In on animal telepathy. And if domestic animals more than 100 experiments, we videotaped are telepathic with their human owners, then the area by the window where Jaytee waited it seems very likely that animals are during Pam's absences, providing a telepathic with each other, and that this may continuous, time-coded record of his play an important part in the wild. Some behaviour which was scored "blind" by a naturalists have already suggested that the third party who did not know the details of coordination of flocks of birds and herds of the experiments. To check that Jaytee was animals may involve something like telepathy, as may communication between not reacting to the sound of Pam's car or other familiar vehicles, we investigated members of a pack of wolves. whether he still anticipated her arrival when she travelled by unusual means: by bicycle, The sense of direction by train and by taxi. He did. Homing pigeons can find their way back to We also carried out experiments in which their loft over hundreds of miles of unfamiliar Pam set off at times selected at random after terrain. Migrating European swallows travel she had left home, communicated to her by thousands of miles to rection and can make means of a telephone pager. In these their way home from unfamiliar places many experiments, Jaytee still started waiting at the miles away. Most research on animal navigation has been window around the time Pam set off, even carried out with homing pigeons, and this 1R -XO\ ,6$= 1HZVOHWWHU research over many decades has served only much better developed in traditional peoples, to deepen the problem of understanding their such as the bushmen of the Kalahari or direction-finding ability. Navigation is goal- Polynesian navigators, than in modern urban directed, and implies that the animals know people. where their home is even when they are in an unfamiliar place, and have to cross unfamiliar terrain. Premonitions. Pigeons do not know their way home by Very little research has been done on animal remembering the twists and turns of the premonitions, even in the case of earthquakes outward journey, because birds taken in where such warnings could prove every closed vans by devious routes find their way useful. home perfectly well, as do birds that have Some forewarnings might be explicable in been anaesthetized on the outward journey, or terms of physical clues, such as electrical transported in rotating drums. They do not changes before earthquakes and storms. navigate by the sun, because pigeons can Other premonitions are more mysterious, as home on cloudy days and can even be trained in the case of animals that anticipated air to navigate at night. However, they may use raids during the Second World War long the sun as a simple compass to keep their before they could have heard enemy planes bearings. Although they use landmarks in approaching, or animals that become agitated familiar terrain, they can home from before unforeseeable accidents. Here unfamiliar places hundreds of kilometres precognition or presentiment may be from their home, where no familiar involved, implying either an influence landmarks are visible. They cannot smell passing backwards in time, or a blurring of their home from hundreds of miles away, the distinction between future, present and especially when it is downwind, although past. smell may play a part in their homing ability when they are close to familiar territory. Pigeons deprived of their sense of smell by Morphic fields researchers were still able to find their homes.