Dogs & Death?

[nancy]

Do dogs have some kind of 6th sense about the death of a friend?

 

We just learned that Fergie's pal Clyde died this morning.

 

He was about 10 years older than us and was out walking the neighborhood every morning and afternoon until he had a heart attack and they discovered metastasized bone cancer - back at the end of September. We could always get Ferg for a walk by saying we might meet Clyde. He'd pat her - and she'd take her ball to him to throw. When he finally got into a rehab center, we brought Fergie over to visit him. She sat beside his bed and he patted her and fondled her ears.

 

This morning, she had no interest in her walks. It was raining, but that never bothers her unless there's thunder. But she dragged herself all the way - both walks. And she kept looking down Clyde's driveway and trying to stay there instead of walk. And, if I ever saw a dog look depressed, it is Fergie today.

 

Clyde went into cardiac arrest about the time of our first walk; he lived until his wife, daughter, and sister got to the hospital.

 

Did Fergie know?

[jrid]

I don't know the answer, but your story made me cry.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I think they know. All the dogs I had that were trained or bred by my old trainer all howled the night he died - not loud, just a soft oooooo all together. It was just them. My only howler and the one rescue I had then who also was a howler, did not join them. We only learned the next morning that he'd died suddenly just then. I had had no idea he'd had such a turn for the worse - I'd just been on the phone with him a few days before and he said he was feeling great and was making plans for clinics and trials.

 

There's a great story in the Bible about the guy who was riding a donkey, and the angel of Death was standing blocking the road. The donkey could see the angel and the guy couldn't, so the man beat the donkey and called him nasty names until God gave the donkey the power to talk back to the moron and tell him what an idiot he was.

 

I do think they can relate to the spiritual on an instinctive level in a way we mostly can't or won't.

[sweet_ceana]

Wow. I would say that she knew that something was wrong. I can't say for sure she knew it was him passing. Dogs always seem to know when things are a little off.

[sandra s.]

There's a great story in the Bible about the guy who was riding a donkey, and the angel of Death was standing blocking the road. The donkey could see the angel and the guy couldn't

 

Oh great, now I've got something to think about while walking in the dark at night with Kessie - she always finds something to stare at that I cannot detect with any of my senses .

 

I do think that they know a lot of things that we don't know or that we've lost touch with, maybe by relying so much on language to communicate.

[painted_ponies]

Nancy, I'm so sorry to read of your neighbor's passing.

 

Appalachian people have a lot of customs when it comes to death and the deceased's animals. Have y'all ever heard about "telling the bees"? Someone goes around to the dead person's bee gums (hives) and tells the bees of the person's death. They tie a black ribbon on the gum afterward, so folks know it's been done. If you don't, the bees will leave and live elsewhere.

 

So I have no trouble believing Fergie knew of your neighbor's death. More things in heaven and earth and all that. What seems supernatural to us, I suspect, is just as normal as breathing to other species. Think of dolphins - so much of their brain is given over to echolocation. If we spent a lot of time under the water, I bet we'd think dolphins had some kind of weird gift of being able to know the shape and size and distance of things we couldn't see.

 

My grandmothers and great aunts always said animals could see "haints." (no direspect intended) A particularly spooky one was said to "see haints where haints ain't."

 

sandra - Faith and Violet do that to me at night on the farm. It really freaks me out when they both start barking, looking in different directions, as though we're surrounded by something. I just take deep breaths and hope it's the Confederate cavalry - I had enough relations in that organization that maybe they wouldn't do me mischief. Then again, it may be coyotes.

[G. Festerling]

Many years ago one of our old broodmares was found in the pasture a long ways away from the herd with only her best friend of what I think was over 15 years by her side. She was dying and we brough her and her friend slowly to the barn. When we took both of them to the vet to euthanize her her friend was very agitated. Untill the medication took hold. From one second to the next she was at peace and settled down. Almost like she knew her friend was painfree and at peace now.

So yes, based on that and other things I have witnessed I do believe that they know.

[Dixie_Girl]

I think Sandra may be on to something. Maybe because we rely so much on spoken language we lose some of the other "gifts". We do still have some left, I mean lookit how things can get heated when things are typed because we can't hear how things are really being said? I do believe that animals and especially dogs, have such a connection to people, they know things. Grandma used to say that on Christmas eve, God always talked to the animals. Maybe He tells them things? Remember the story of the little dog in England that even when his master was buried, he wouldn't leave his side? And all the villagers fed him and seen to him, but he lived his life by the grave? And they put up a monument to the little dog? Yeah, animals know lots of things we have forgotton. Granny never spent a night in her whole 87 yrs alone. She was always wary of haints and gypsy's!