Dog's Sixth Sense?

Dogs, and most other animals (except cats ) are much more amazing than we give them credit for.

With epilepsy, the brain's electrical activity is disturbed. Perhaps a dog can sense such a change? I've read elsewhere that deer can become disoriented by power lines, so perhaps man's best friend has some sensitivity here, too.

Dog's hearing and smell are both more sensitive than human's. A dog hears frequencies we don't - hence the dog whistle effect. I can't see how this would relate to your friend's seizure, unless there's actually something in the environment triggering her seizures, and which the dog was able to hear and recognize. (pulsed lights can trigger seizures for some, I don't know about high frequency sound waves...)?

The smell idea makes sense, if there are chemical changes going on in your friend's body before the seizure, the dog could certainly notice that.

More good reasons to have a dog.. sensory functions we just can't do on our own!

There was a case, a couple of years ago that a show dog that also detected one of the cancers, indicated one of the judges at a show. That very early detection worked for the judge.

Okay, I found:

"One dog who stood out above the rest was a Portuguese water dog named Isabelle. She had been a show dog and had been disqualified at a dog show when she sat down while the judge was trying to inspect her. The judge was later diagnosed as having previously undetected melanoma."

http://www.spcadbn.org.za/ARTICLES-killerdiseases.php

I wonder how many times she was naughty for Judges that were perfectly healthy?

GA, often facts spoil perfectly good stories.

Dog's abilities to detect certain cancers are well documented in medical literature. Don't be so quick to dismiss what you do not understand, that is one of the root causes of ignorance throughout the ages. For years I discounted acupuncture as hokum and nonsense, now I have arthritis and am undergoing acupuncture treatments and find them amazingly helpful

I've also heard about that and never checked into "how" the dogs actually receive the warning. In looking on the net, there are 100s of training sites and 100s of articles on seizure-alert dogs, but none write to how this is possible. My theory is they can sense the electrical disruption as well as smell a chemical change. In a pheasant hunting area I frequent, my youngest lab's hair on the back of her neck stands up when we traverse under a string of massive tower power lines, she acts like she's about to uncover something more exciting than finding a bird, starts running around faster, growling a little, but she's also either scared/alert because the hair on her neck stands up, or she is being e-charged!! None-the-less, she acts quite different under this certain set of power lines - that combined with a known scientific fact her nose is much more keen than humans leads me to my theory.

Perhaps we as humans have learned to only accept what we can understand. As engineers, we are expected to determine what will happen by the formulas. Animals don't have those formulas. Maybe dogs can feel the electrical changes from an oncoming seizure. Perhaps dogs can smell cancer. Perhaps cats can pretend to act civilized. Na I don't think cats can pull that off.

Just do a Google search on "Jim the wonder dog". This dog seemed to have ESP and would respond to questions or commands even in foreign languages that his owner didn't speak. He was examined at the University of Missouri and nobody could explain how he did it. He even predicted some Kentucky Derby horse race winners but his owner didn't feel it was right to exploit this gift for money. He was even offered movie contracts. It really is amazing. There is still so much about nature that we still don't understand.

Ed

Nothing metaphysical about it in the way the 6th sense term is used for. Still it's known that some animals have more advanced or even different senses than the 5 that we can comprehand. It is prooven for example that some animals can sense earth magnetic field and find their way by it or that vets can "see" in the dark with their sonar. Don't think we can really understand a sense we don't have . In the case you mentioned the dog may had sensed abnormal brain activity, it's behavior may caused the seizure or the whole thing was plain quincidence. Too difficult issue to give serious answer

14 years ago my dog displayed behaviour never seen before- he whined around me & sniffed me- very distraught. I went to bed as did he- a few hours later I nearly died as a result of an anaphylactic attack- never before or since- turned out to be reaction to a new asthma medication. This dog(blue Heeler) died at 10 years of age from cancer of the spine-came on quickly-3 weeks after symptoms was gone. He would sit in the car with the most beautiful far away look in his eyes as if he knew he was dying & welcomed entry to a better world. My next companion( black Kelpie) only has to go once to any location & remembers it- 1 night while watching tv & he was about 3 years old(now 6) he came up to me- I said"Inky- does God exist?"- he looked up at me & nodded his head up & down 3 times- as we would to say yes- he never did this before or since- but I have never asked him the question again, I am now pretty well convinced. When I was about 19 years old I had a job on the council as a labourer- 1 day I was assigned to grave digging- for some reason I treated the site disrespectfully- don't know why-probably youthful arrogance- got home & found my dog had been killed at about that time(run over). To finish- God is dog spelled backward.

Are you allowed to drink with asthma medication?

Our dogs can tell when my wife starts home from her mothers house, a good five miles away. They run to the door, start barking and jumping about excitedly. They will go on like this for 10 minutes or more until she arrives home. They don't get excited when she leaves her mothers to go shopping or anywhere else only when she starts home. ESP? I don't pretend to know how they do it, just what. By the way, two Pekingese and one mini dachshund

Repair her car's exaust system

Hi,

as seizure is a neurological instability it is accompanied by chemical reaction.

These reactions produce a lot of unknown chemical stuff, some of this is volatile and will change our breathed air composition.

This the dog will detect with a superb nose you cannot imagine how fine and well tuned if trained.

Dogs can smell cancer (may be only some types and if trained).

We are only at the beginning of this exciting learning and may be creating chemical sensors for dedicated tasks.

Look what Oridion in Israel is doing: a gas sensor that senses the traces of Helicobacter pylori in our breath!

The good side of this story is the hope that there may be a possibility of intervention if a coming event is known this early.

RHABE

Back in 1957 (?) we had stopped over night in a small motel a few hours from Mexico City. Late that evening, dogs started barking, roosters starting crowing and the horses in a nearby field could be heard running fast and making nervous sounds.

We did not understand the strange combination of behaviors until an hour later when a violent earhquake shook the region with such force tha it cracked the National Lottery Building in half in Mexico City, from top to bottom.

It's obvious that animals are endowed with a higher level of sensory awareness. We might too but for the internal noise and dialogues that come from having invented language.

I'm confident that there is a rational explanation for your question. Science hasn't gotten wround to it yet, but I'm sure with time, they will

L.G.

Hi,

recently I read a quite similar story about a dog in Germany. Although scientists could not unambigously figure out what the dog "sensed", the dog proved her ability to give early warning signals on severl occasions.

You may also be aware that there are dogs being trained to detect unhealthy blood sugar levels in people suffering from diabetis. they can smell changes in the chemical composition of their owner's breath.

My personal opinion is that the body language of people suffering from Epilepsy may show very small changes which are usually unnoticable to humans but which are percievable to animals, specificalls those who are very close to their human "companions". As these tiny signs irritate the dog she may show this irritation by some kind of unusual behaviour. - As I said: Just my personal theory.

I have seen many dogs that respond to even small changes in the body language of humans and respond to them. So my foster dog alway knew when I felt depressed and tried to show me how much she loved my presence and that she would always be my side and would care for me, no matter what happened.

nudnik

Many years ago I was on a course, and, staying in a pub/guest house which used to be a coaching inn (so very old building). In the middle of the night I woke up and became convinced that there was someone or something in the room. Don't be stupid: go back to sleep; I couldn't; "Oh this is stupid I'll have to get up and turn on the light and have a good look round"; I was lying on my side and rolled onto my back; there was a pair of eyes looking straight at me from about a foot away; I nearly.........

It was just a cat sitting on the pillow. My point is: that somehow I knew it was there, but, have no idea which one of my senses was telling me it was there. I suspect that our brains take in information from several of our senses and somehow multiply them together to give a feeling which is "greater than the sum". I bet seizure dogs do something similar.

You are correct in your theory of the chemical change exuding a smell that the canine companion can detect. There are several accounts of detection of cancerous areas on the human body being detected by the canine due to the the change in the human companions physiology and the fact that the canine picked up on the change.

Just as they notice our mood changes, they notice when the smell is incorrect. As they lack in some forms of communication they use smell in it's place. Just as they use it to identify and marlk places they have been.

My cousin was the trainer for a rescue dog with the Baltimore, MD fire department. Mattie, a black lab, was so highly trained that she could detect a body in water over 300 feet deep. Her skills were very instrumental in several fairly high profile rescues and criminal cases (often attributed to "A man was walking his dog when they discovered.....). My cousin spent hours each day working with Mattie, playing hide and seek, riding in cars, boats, trains, etc to hone her search skills. After a successful search when a body was found, Mattie would become morose and mourn the loss of life. The only way to perk her back up was to have a young child (usually a neighbor) play hide and seek with her. When Mattie found the child alive and well she would bounce around in joy and return to her normal self. She was a great dog.

An animal's sensory sensitivity is simply amazing while ours has become numbed by our artificial environment.

I know I had a dog who seemed to see ghosts or something

... so I'm definitely up to the thought that they can perceive more of their surroundings than us humans can...

Here is a shot of Freebee my sons family dog. It was taken with a digital camera.

After downloading we noticed the ghost like swirls and wondered were they had come from. There was no explanation at all, we could just not work them out.

He was dead shortly after. Old age had gotten the better of him. No, I do not believe in ghosts and photo shop was not used. Has he got a fare well look on his face or what?

It was the day Micheal Jackson died. Maybe he's with him now looking after the kids. He was the best baby sitter one could ever ask for. Nobody unauthorized would get near the kids, ever. He is very much missed by us all, Ky.

I dated this woman a while back who's father had been murdered. The last time he saw his family, it was in a fight, and words were said that should not have been, and then he was never seen alive again. She said she could "feel" him around her, like he was protecting her or something. The picture with your dog reminded me of this, because in nearly every single picture of her, no matter if it was indoors, outdoors, on a digital camera, 35mm, with many other people, or all by herself, there was a white wisp, or cloud just off her shoulder... I always thought it was quite strange, and frustrating, it was nearly impossible to get a decent picture without that darn "cloud" hanging around. I could never see it with my eyes, but it would always show up in the pictures.

For a while I was able to give reasonable explanations for the anomaly in the photos, but I ended up running out of reasons, and gave up, just accepting it as "the unknown".

That photo of your dog has very pronounced "clouds", which I'm sure were not visible to the naked eye when the picture was taken.

I'm almost glad I can't perceive all of what is around me... I'd probably be in an institution, being probed, pumped with drugs and "stimulated" with electricity if I could.

Me again

Now that I have found an ear here is another photo. You are right the fog swirls were not visible to us (my son and me) with the naked eye. If you look carefully the white ball is clearly visible and I can't remember taking the shot. If I took it Freebee should and would have been still there but he obviously isn't. It is the next shot on the dig. camera. Very spooky and like I said I really do not believe in such things and have to take it with a grain of salt and just except it.

It looks like a ping pong ball but it isn't. You will notice that were Freebee should have been there is a kind of cloud, mist. Hard to see on this shot but clearly visible when magnified. I'll be buggered. May he rest in peace, Ky.

I can clearly see a spirit there. I'd bet it's Elvis

Hi Tippy

It's for hitting practice. As you can see (or not) it is attached to a string. I had not noticed it before I had a closer look at the picture on the day. I left it were it was as to not turn my statement ("I swear I did not use photo shop") into an un-truth.

Tai-Chi symbol

I think you meant Ying and Yang symbol but in any case it is not important (?). It could be used for Tai-Chi, you are right. I have even seen it used as an endorsement for pet food and other not really related products. I'm over it, Ky.

Here is a close up I just created.

I swear it is not photo shop, Ky.

My mother tells a story of when she was a child growing up on a farm in extremely rural Florida. One of her relatives (I don't recall which as she has many that she knows ... first cousins, second cousin, second cousins once removed and so on) was on his death bed with the preacher and other relatives around praying and hoping for the best. As soon as her relative took his last breath his 5 dogs outside the house began to howl as if morning his passage (or saying good bye?).

Remember also the actions of aminals prior to the Tsunami in Indonesia etc a few years ago. Animals headed for the high ground long before humans were aware of impending disaster. Dogs can sense many things, most likely from changes in odor emanating from a person's body. Birds, seagulls etc often head in-shore before an approaching storm.

It is usually the case to think of seizures as precipitous events that seem to appear suddenly out of no where. In actuality it is frequently not the case that there is no prodromal phase building up to an epileptic seizure event...it's only that observers usually don't have sufficient experience with the patient to recognize...or are reluctant out of politeness...or lacking in clinical or first aid skills...

So, for a long-familiar animal to "pickup" on behavioral cues given even hours in advance of crisis does not necessarily demand an extraordinary (or supernatural) explanation. Of course, the fact that a dog cannot sufficiently "explain" does add a touch of mystery.

Probably just that the seizure is at its end stage by the time it is out of control and observed to be a seizure. And that is not a typical of many epileptic type siezures...where seizure activity actually progresses to the point of convulsion and such, which actually means it die not simply begin at the time at which it was unmistakably a seizure. Indeed one with frequent contact with such a person will generally become adept at recognizing seizure onset at earlier and earlier moment; so it should not surprise that dog, too, could do so...without need of extraordinary senses. Except in the sense that training of the dog to respond in certain ways to sense of a patient's epilepsy might be construed as a specially developed sense of dog's.