A Dog’s-Eye-View of the Spirit World

A Dog’s-Eye-View of the Spirit World
By Mitchel Whitington, author of “A Ghost in my Suitcase”

I often get the question, “do you believe that animals are more in tune to the supernatural than humans?”
Well, I hate making generalized statements, but as an overall rule, I actually do believe that animals and children are much more pre-disposed to brushes with the paranormal than adults. Their minds are pure and innocent, free from a lifetime of conditioning to suppress anything out of the realm of the “normal”.
Just think about it – if a child were to say, “Mommy, I see a man standing there,” most mothers would glance over at an empty hallway and reply, “There’s no one there, honey, it’s just your imagination.” No matter how the child insisted, the mother would continue to rein the child back into the “real” world. God forbid that the kid grows up seeing things that “aren’t there”.

In my experience, it’s the same with animals – especially dogs and cats, which become such close companions to their human caretakers. You learn to read their every bark or meow, and can immediately tell the difference between a request for a treat and an alarm that something is going on outside. When a warning bark is given that something abnormal is happening – someone is in the house, for example – the human investigates, and if all is well, goes on about his business. This could leave the little family pet staring at the ghostly figure of a man that everyone else seems to be ignoring… how confusing would that be to their canine or feline mind?

Something like that has happened in our house on several occasions. Our basset hound Murphy would let us know immediately if someone was at the door. At the first sound of a knock, he would jump up, even from a sound sleep, and go running to the front door where he would stand and bark until we answered the door. We often joked that we never needed a doorbell – Murphy did a much better job.

Since we live in a house that is haunted by several spirits, we’ve seen Murphy jump up and run barking on several occasions when there was no one there that we could see. Sometimes at the front door, other times up in the parlor, and at a few other places in the house. Each time, he was alerting us of a visitor with the same fervor that he did when there was physically someone at the door. We are sure that he saw someone in the house that he didn’t think was supposed to be there, but we just couldn’t detect our ghostly visitor.
It’s more than just seeing spirits, however. Animals seem to be much more in tune with their psychic abilities than humans are. Just look at the recent tsunami disaster – long before the wave hit, many animals moved further inland and to higher ground to escape the killer waves. Some scientists speculate that they felt the tremor of the earthquake, others suggest that they could feel the rumbling of the wave approaching, but still others aren’t sure how they did it, only that they “sensed” the impending danger and moved away from it.
Recently in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, a family dog woke his owners up with frantic barking at their home. They got out of bed and looked around, but saw no prowlers or other problems. Finally, one of the family members happened to glance across the street at the base of the water tower there, and saw that it appeared to be swelling as if it was about to burst. The family ran to the car, along with their dog, and sped away just as the tower gave way with enough tonnage of water to do severe damage to their home – had they been there sleeping, there is a very good chance that some would have been hurt or even killed. Did the dog hear the metal stressing with his superior canine ears, or did he detect the impending danger in some way that, as humans, we can’t fathom… who knows?

In my work, I’ve interviewed many people with stories about their pets being part of supernatural experiences, and even returning to visit after death. In fact, I edited a book entitled, “Haunted Encounters: Personal Stories of Departed Pets” that focuses on that very topic. There are simply too many credible accounts of pets interacting with the supernatural and the spirits of animals returning to discount such ideas. Animal spirits also play an important role in Native American religions. I simply have to believe that there is a connection between animals and the afterlife.

I’ll tell you my favorite story about my dogs, though – kind of a “dog’s eye view” of the supernatural, I guess. One night at our home, which as I said before is actively haunted, my wife got sleepy before I did and turned in for the evening. Our two basset hounds, Murphy and Samantha, stayed in the den with me, and then eventually got up and walked into the hallway toward the bedroom. I assumed that they were going to lie down at the foot of our bed where they slept. A little while later, I was going to bed, but I didn’t see the bassets anywhere. I began searching the house, and realized that they were nowhere to be found. Terrified that a door had been left open and they’d wandered outside, I ran to get my shoes. When I opened the door of our hall closet, the dogs were sitting quietly inside, starting up at me. The door had been shut tightly, and since they obviously couldn’t pull it closed, someone had to shut them in there. My wife had been sound asleep for some time, so I just shook my head and laughed. I wish that they could talk – I’d bet that my bassets would have some wonderful ghost stories to tell.