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What does "being watched" feel like?

Like when you're around other people but minding your own business, reading, whatever, and you suddenly have the feeling that someone's attention in on you. You look up and indeed someone is staring at you.

That's one way. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

<img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> so true.

Anyone intrested in the paranormal studies as it pertains to animals, might consider reading one of these, written by a well-respected "fringe scientist" Rupert Sheldrake...
Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals
Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science

I'm probably going to make myself sound like such a fool, but i absolutely beleive in ghosts and the afterlife. I can tell you more stories than i have time to write, but I'll share a quick one with whoever decides to read this.
One night, late, probably after midnight, my brother went to lock the front door. To the left and very close to the front door is a closet. As he locked the front door, there was a VERY load pound on the closet door, as if someone on the inside punched it.
Anyway, one late night, around 2-3 am(or is that early morning?) i was watching tv with my dog, Ricky, for probably a couple hours. Out of nowhere, he sits up, looks directly at the closet for several seconds, then started barking very aggresively. This behavior was completely out of the ordinary for him, especially at night when everyone's asleep and its quiet.
Anyway, thats just one of my stories. Not all involve dogs. Please dont tell my shrink <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I read about this stuff, and think, we need to be careful. Not understanding what is going on does not justify jumping to conclusions of telepathy or paranormal activity.

At one time no one understood that elephants can communicate over extremely long distances by making sounds so low that we cannot hear them. This communication was going on, and we were clueless. We know dogs have sharper hearing and smell than we have. Who knows what else may be going on that has a physical explanation we just aren't smart enough to look for?

My dog does know when a family member is coming home before the car or truck turns onto our street, I think he can hear better than we can and has learned to recognize the sound of our vehicles. Why not? He has plenty of time during the day to watch us, listen to us, and figure out our patterns. Something I didn't realize, until I had a dog and started paying close attention, is that the dogs in my area have formed their own neighborhood watch. My dog will start barking at something, and I have to open the door and stick my head outside to discover there are other dogs barking in the distance. He is reacting to them.

IMHO, we should always look for the physical explanation first, and then, when we can't find it, assume we didn't look hard enough and look again <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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"If one applies the term ESP to perception by process not yet known to us, then extra sensory perception among living creatures may very well occur widely. In fact the echolocation of bats, the function of the lateral line in fishes and the way electric fish find their prey are all based on processes which we do not know about - and which were thus 'extrasensory' in this sense only 25 years ago."

ethologist, Nikko Tinbergen

OK thanks, now I really won't sleep good tonight <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />,
Hopefully hubby will be home early tonight, I know he'll protect me from ghosts.....at least keep my mind off <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I think that this example is within the area of dogs being sensitive to things we cannot see or hear. My dog Ingo's mother is a seizure dog. She can detect when her owner is going to have an epileptic incident and will warn her when there is still time to take medication to prevent it. I have been there when this has happened and know that it is a very real talent posessed by some dogs.

Whenever something strange happens in my home I try to come up with a rational reason for what occurred. Sometimes I come up with a logical explanation and sometimes I cannot. I'll give one example. Last May, I was sitting on my living room couch wathing tv with my daughter. On the coffe table in front of us, I had a brown paper lunch bag filled with plastic toe inserts (I broke my toe taking a police k-9 decoy class and the inserts would go between my broken toe and good toe) and a roll of tape. Anyways, we were watching tv when I heard the sound of a paperbag being crumbled. The sound was loud enough for me to hear it and realize it was coming from the paper bag on the table. I looked at the paper bag and about 1-2 seconds later I heard a pop and the top part of the bag jolted sideways. It like someone flicked the bag with their finger. I cannot blame that incident on my daughter, mice, air currents in the house etc. I will take my dog to the vet to rule out any medical issues. Anyways, my family and I are thinking about moving but it isn't that easy.

Hi - My dog did behave very similar to yours with the out of the blue aggressive barking/hackles raised and also he would be sitting there or even sometimes sleeping and he would yelp and get up and run. Sometimes after this type of episode he would stand there staring with his head dropped low almost like a hyena. It turned out he had menigitis from a very bad case of lyme disease. It was very odd because he was not lame, and had no loss of appetite. The only symptoms were his behavior. Definitely get him to the vet asap. Good luck!