A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner Is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observations

Abstract

Abstract—Many dog owners claim that their animals know when a member of the household is about to come home, showing their anticipation by wait-ing at a door or window. We have investigated such a dog, called Jaytee, in more than 100 videotaped experiments. His owner, Pam Smart (P.S.) traveled at least 7 km away from home while the place where the dog usually waited for her was filmed continuously. The time-coded videotapes were scored blind. In experiments in which P.S. returned at randomly selected times, Jay-tee was at the window 4 % of the time during the main period of her absence and 55 % of the time when she was returning (p <.0001). Jaytee showed a similar pattern of behavior in experiments conducted independently by Wise-man, Smith, and Milton (1998). When P.S. returned at nonroutine times of her own choosing, Jaytee also spent very significantly more time at the win-dow when she was on her way home. His anticipatory behavior usually began shortly before she set off. Jaytee also anticipated P.S.’s return when he was left at P.S.’s sister’s house or alone in P.S.’s flat. In control experiments, when P.S. was not returning, Jaytee did not wait at the window more and more as time went on. Possible explanations for Jaytee’s behavior are discussed. We conclude that the dog’s anticipation may have depended on a telepathic influ-ence from his owner.