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Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals | Rupert Sheldrake | One of the best books I've read lately

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Dogs That Know Whe...

	Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals Rupert Sheldrake Three Rivers Press, 2000 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

How do cats know when it's time to go to the vet, even before the cat carrier comes out? How do dogs know when their owners are returning home at unexpected times? How can horses find their way back to the stable over completely unfamiliar terrain?

With a scientist's mind and an animal lover's compassion, world-renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake presents a groundbreaking exploration of animal behavior that will profoundly change the way we think about animals -- and ourselves. After five years of extensive research involving thousands of people who have pets and work with animals, Dr. Sheldrake proves conclusively what many pet owners already know: there is a strong connection between humans and animals that defies present-day scientific understanding. This remarkable book deserves a place next to the most beloved and valuable books on animals, including When Elephants Weep, Dogs Never Lie About Love, and The Hidden Life of Dogs.

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Amazing, Enlightening, Thought-Provoking

Some dogs seem to know when their owners are coming home. No, not when they are walking up the front steps, but when they are still at the office DECIDING to come home. Some animals know when their owners are in distress or dying, far away. Some animals know when their owners are about to have a seizure, or attempt suicide.

Author Rupert Sheldrake has compiled a database of hundreds of fascinating anecdotal reports, supplemented by simple but clever research studies. He challenges us to consider these unusual but intriguing phenomena, that do not depend on physical distance or any known sensory pathways. He has a healthy respect for scientific method (and uses it when he can) but none at all for scientific dogmatism. To skeptics who discount these remarkable observations as mere "selective recall," he says, do the research and prove it.

This is a fascinating and well-written book. It was hard to put down, and in fact, I may read it again. To be sure, Sheldrake can't explain the phenomena he describes. He invokes the concept of morphic fields but can't really tell us what they are. Further research is needed, and, to his credit, Sheldrake is attempting to recruit people all over the world, to participate in just such research. Why, even you could participate. I recommend this book highly. Run out and buy it today. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

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One of the best books I've read lately

This book was well-written, engaging, and thought provoking. The research was very well done, and I am usually quite skeptical. But this opened up a whole line of thought of how our minds may work, for me. I definately recommend it.

Making science a quality social experience

Sheldrake makes scientific inquiry not just adventurous and rigorous, but also playful and friendly. His experiments are designed to involve many people in testing theory after theory to account for animal behavior. How do pets know when the vet is coming? How do animals anticipate earthquakes? How do they know to give up waiting by the door, when their owners change plans and postpone coming home?

Sheldrake's experiments, surveys and documentation always prove entertaining. With Sheldrake, science becomes a community experience, open to all who are curious and willing to put their minds together.

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Convincing Research

Starts with many natural case histories for psychic pets, then describes his brilliantly simple experiment. I interviewed Dr. Sheldrake on my Skeptiko Podcast. He's extremely well-spoken and likeable.

questions which are rarely asked - and an attempt to answer

In "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home" Rupert Sheldrake continues his quest for acknowledgement of phenomena neglected, forgotten or brushed aside by modern science. This time he focuses on the unexplained powers of animals.
Starting with the observations of pets, through behavior of wild animals, to humans, Sheldrake examines the connections and bonds between living creatures, which lead them to feel each other's emotional and physical state.

Probably all pet owners and people fond of animals have observed that some animals demonstrate behaviors that cannot be explained by genes or instinct (or, that would be too much simplified by such explanation). Wondering, how the pets know, when their owners are coming home, when some accident or death occurred, how to find a way home from an unfamiliar place even far away, when the owner intends to give them food or go for a walk, or how to recognize an attack of an illness such as diabetic coma or epileptic seizure, or even the natural disasters, like storm or earthquake, probably happened to all pet owners some time or another - and most of the time these thoughts were probably bagatelized and quickly forgotten in the face of more important everyday events.

The book is very well ordered and organized, very much like a scientific publication. After a short, introductory chapter, summarizing the history of animal domestication, Rupert Sheldrake presents the data gathered during his systematic studies, mostly through surveys in different parts of United States and Europe. The data consists of examples of pets, which exhibited behaviors described above, collected and analyzed in impressive amounts (even with statistics). Not only does he report accounts from the owners of dogs and cats, but also gives examples of horses, rabbits, birds and fish, and negative examples of pet reptiles and insects. He proceeds from these examples to the flocking and migratory behaviors of the wild animals (the linking behavior is the return home) and compares the findings to the human abilities, which, in the contemporary, civilized world, seem ridiculously meager.

The main body of the book consists of these examples and this is its strength (as a scientific argument) and weakness (as a popular book, because the lengthy lists of examples can be boring). The conclusions, however, are not very strong. Sheldrake applies here his famous hypothesis of morphic fields, which, in analogy to magnetic and electrical fields, are created by forces - yet undescribed -which are, in turn, created by social influence between individuals. The existence of morphic fields is an interesting hypothesis, but only a hypothesis. Luckily, Sheldrake admits it himself and does not push his hypothesis as a theory or as a universal truth, like some gurus of fashionable, popular "science" books. I have to give him great credit for being a scientist even though what he does is beyond the scope of contemporary science. The same goes for his explanations of animal behaviors by their ability to precognize certain events or by telepathy. Telepathy, or mind-to-mind-communication, seems especially plausible as an explanation of pets knowing their owners intentions before the owner can communicate them in any other way (body language, any sensory signal). Although telepathy is obviously his favorite explanation of communication between pets and owners, between animals in the group, and, almost lost, between humans, Sheldrake does not give it as the only explanation. He always tries to show other ones and, giving arguments for and against each one (sometimes, admittedly, not very strong) dismisses them or not. His approach reminds me very strongly of the approach of psychologists, which very often are vague as well. That is perhaps why I liked the chapters on the migratory birds most, maybe, because, as a biologist, I see most of the ecological and "harder science" in it?

At the end of the book, the methods for investigation of pet behavior are presented, so that the interested readers can try their own experiments, which are very simple and do not require much skill - only perseverance.

I like Sheldrake for pursuing his goal of presenting to the non-scientific crowd of readers the alternative or once studies, but today neglected, scientific questions, without cheap trick or want for fame. He is doing his job and I admire his work, even though I have my doubts about it. I don't think this book was supposed to convince anybody of anything (as some previous reviews suggest), it rather intends to puzzle and ask questions, making the reader realize they cannot be unequivocally answered with the current state of knowledge. This book is not his best (some are really great), mainly because of endless lists of examples, but it is good and solid.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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