Dogs and the Paranormal There are many people who have had a paranormal experience, but are too embarrassed to let anyone know, because they don’t want people to think they are nuts. One survey result showed more than half of the population had some type of this experience, whether it was visual or auditory. In plainer words, they either saw an apparition or heard a voice, and many times it is of a loved one who has passed. It also seems there is a creature who seems to be able to detect paranormal situations even when we can’t and it is the family dog. There are many different opinions on this. One investigator said dogs are very sensitive to spirits and have several ways of detecting them. They can sense them, hear them and even see them at times. I say at times since no one is sure, when they seem to be barking at nothing this might what is going on. The reason for this could also be they detected a sound outside or smelled an animal. There are cases on record where a dog was continuously barking when it seemed nothing was there and suddenly a spirit was detected by a home owner or investigator. The dog seemed to be so sensitive to that situation, it was said the spirit couldn’t hide from it. It has been said, when a dog does detect a spirit, you may be able to tell if it is friendly or not by the dog’s actions. If the dog starts to snarl, growl or hide, it is said to be a good indication the spirit is malevolent and it is suggested you have the house blessed. There are more reasons why dogs are so sensitive and they are a dog can detect the difference in barometric pressure and probably changes in temperature. The American Kennel Club tried to answer the question if dogs could see ghosts and they said they just don’t know, but due to the sharper senses of a dog, the idea of a dog sensing something a human can’t is not out of the question. One person is sure their pet dog saw a ghost. They were entering the home and were near the kitchen. Suddenly the dog stopped and the hair rose on its back. It stepped between the kitchen door and the person and leaned on the person as if trying to push him back. It seems the dog might have seen a ghost and tried to protect her master from danger. There are stories about dogs detecting where a death took place years ago and reacting to it. Sometimes they stop at the scene and refuse to go any further, other times they create a racket at the spot by looking around and barking. Dogs can detect bodies and these dogs are called cadaver dogs. The dogs are so sensitive they can detect bodies buried a couple of hundred years ago. The breeds which are used the most for this work are Bloodhounds, German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Belgian Malinois, Labrador Retrievers and Spaniels. Could a dog like this still smell the odor of death on a spirit and could that be one way the dog could detect it? I saw a video of a medium sized dog which was in an apartment with its master and kept going over to a corner in the dining room, acting nervous and making low barks. The dog would slowly leave and go back and this behavior just kept going on. There was nothing at all in the corner the dog was reacting to and the owner was also getting nervous and starting to think it could be a spirit. That experience reminded me of one we had when the family was in the living room and there was a child about 3 years old staring at a corner on the ceiling and when we asked him what he was looking at, he said uncle Jack. Jack had lived here and died a few months before. There are also many stories about young children being able to see spirits. One story talks about a dog making a racket and looking down stairs. The dog was doing what he thought was his duty by blocking the stairway. A video was taken as the owners went downstairs and when they got there, they found broken items and many opened cabinets. As they continued the video, one of the cabinet doors slammed shut on its own. It seems the dog may have been on to something or the entire video was staged, we can’t be sure, but there is no doubt about the sensitivity of dogs. One of the problems trying to prove dogs can see ghosts is with videos themselves. Videos have become too easy to manipulate. Unless you have an expert examine them for tampering you just can’t be sure they are real, and even then, there are other ways to fool the public with manipulating the actual video by using miniatures and other things. It’s a lucky thing for us there are many respectable people with great reputations who admit a dog alerted them to a spirit. There is a belief if a family member who has died is in the home, a dog will recognize this fact and be happy to see it. The dog might wag its tail and make happy gestures when there doesn’t seem to be anything there. Some dogs get very attached to their dead masters and friends. There is a story about a dog which used to go down to a train station to wait for its master to come from work. One day he never returned because he died, but the dog wouldn’t leave the station because it still waited for him. This went on for some time and the workers at the station started to take care of the dog while it sat on the platform waiting for the train. This went on for years but the dog never gave up and finally died. The dog was buried with a tombstone erected to his loyalty. There are very few things in life more loyal than a dog. Some people believe this loyalty transcends the grave. There has been a question asked for thousands of years which is does a dog go to heaven? Some have said no because only humans have souls, but others think all living things have them. Personally, I would like to think the three dogs which I had in my lifetime are somewhere having fun chewing on a bone somewhere and waiting for me.
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