Do you think animals have a sixth sense ?

[WildRosie]

I don't have any pets but in the family home decades ago, our three Cocker spaniels seemed to know when somebody wasn't well. Our eldest spaniel especially paid particular attention to the 'patient', making more of a fuss than usual and taking position by their side. Perhaps it's a dog's acute sense of smell or perception of unusual body language that gives them this apparent edge but I like to think it's a magical instinct that only they possess. Conversely, I don't recall our last cat ever noticing if someone was poorly. That's cats for you. More recently, I have noticed that the feral pigeons that perch on the roof opposite my front room always dive for cover whenever a thunderstorm is about to strike. You certainly notice when around fifty birds suddenly take to the air en masse and tear past your window. I wonder if they detect variations in magnetism in the atmosphere ? Following magnetic north is believed to be a method of navigation for the ferals' relatives, the homing pigeons.

@IncompleteSenten

No. But their 5 senses are better than ours.

We all have many more than 5 senses, and many animals have senses we don't, which - along with a vastly better sense than us e.g. smell - can appear to be a "6th sense"

Some human senses:

1. Sight
2. Taste
3. Touch
4. Pressure
5. Itch
6. Ability to sense heat and cold.
7. Sound
8. Smell
9. Proprioception

The ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts. It’s one of the things police officers test when they pull someone over who they think is driving drunk. The “close your eyes and touch your nose” test is testing this sense. This sense is used all the time in little ways, such as when you scratch an itch on your foot, but never once look at your foot to see where your hand is relative to your foot.

10. Tension sensors
    These are found in your muscles and allow the brain the ability to monitor muscle tension.

11. "Nociception" - the ability to feel pain

12. Equilibrioception
    The sense that allows you to keep your balance and sense body movement in terms of acceleration and directional changes. This sense also allows for perceiving gravity.

This sensory system is found in your inner ears and is called the vestibular labyrinthine system. Anyone who’s ever had this sense go out on them knows how important it is. When it’s not working or malfunctioning, you literally can’t tell up from down. Moving from one location to another without aid is nearly impossible.

13. Stretch receptors
    Found in the lungs, bladder, stomach, and the gastrointestinal tract. A type of stretch receptor that senses dilation of blood vessels is also often involved in headaches.

14. Chemoreceptors
    These trigger an area of the medulla in the brain that’s involved in detecting blood borne hormones and drugs. It’s also involved in the vomiting reflex.

15. Thirst

16. Hunger

17. Magnetoreception
    The ability to detect magnetic fields. This sense is principally useful in providing a sense of direction when detecting the Earth’s magnetic field.

Unlike most birds, humans do not have a strong magnetoreception. However, experiments have demonstrated that we do tend to have some sense of magnetic fields. The mechanism for this is not completely understood; it is theorized that this has something to do with deposits of ferric iron in our noses. People who are given magnetic implants have been shown to have a much stronger magnetoreception than humans without them.

18. Time This one is debated. However, experimental data has shown humans have a startling accurate sense of time, particularly when younger.

From this article:

www.considerable.com/health/healthy-living/humans-five-senses/

I think domesticated animals rely on their senses more than they rely on our words, and this can translate as extraordinary perception. E.g. Dogs sense owners anxiety and react ; or dogs see owners sad expression and comfort.
My own dogs seem very empathetic, but they rely on their observation more than what I tell them

No. Human’s have just evolved differently. We mainly communicate with language, animals don’t. Eg my horses respond to vocal communication, and recognise certain words and phrases, but it’s mainly for the benefit of humans and convenience, and plays a minor role. The majority of the time, and certainly for anything important it’s body language.
Any half decent pet owner can tell when their animal is a bit off colour, without their animal communicating in words or writhing in agony, so I don’t find it remotely surprising they can do the same.
I say humans have evolved differently, but I suppose what I really mean is that as a race we’ve physically evolved so some senses are reduced, and in other areas many people/ cultures are just out of practice.

One of my previous much-loved cats always used to run round to the front garden and greet me at the front door. It didn't seem to matter what time of day, and we worked out she recognised the sound of my car's engine from far off, and she'd come to meet me.

So how come she knew it was me coming up the road on the day I came home in my new car?

Love this thread

I’m not sure about a sixth sense but I think animals are very tuned into human emotions. Especially if you’re upset or worried, they really show you they care.

I think they have better senses than humans and I’m sure another sense we don’t have, such as predicting bad weather and natural disasters. Dogs are used to warn of diabetic hypos although that could just be a smell that’s given off, and warning of epileptic seizures. I don’t know how they do that do that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Said that twice sorry!

My cats once detected when I merely thought about giving them tuna. They all got up and walked to the kitchen.

They also know when they have a vets appointment and will disappear until after the vets has closed.

My ponies knew when I was pregnant. The girl horse was over protective and chased all the others away in the field, she was normally very low down in the pecking order. The boy horse was very nervous around me. My ddog knows when one of us is sad or stressed and just lays on us.

Have 3 cats, and one is rather independent and fickle. Will come in a bit more in winter, but most of the year just come in twice a day for food. Doesn't ever come upstairs in the house even really if inside. However, when was pregnant a couple of years ago he started coming and sleeping on the bedroom floor next to the bed. Never has since!

We call one of my cats 'nurse cat' because she is. I wasn't well last year and ended up in A and E with sepsis. When I finally got home she wouldn't leave me alone for days. Literally everywhere I went the cat was with me as well, giving me gentle purrs and fusses. And if I am awake during the night (insonmia/anxiety) I can guarantee she will come and find me and stay with me until I am OK or I drift off again.

Normally she's a complete cow and is very much of the 'you don't own me, you serve me' mindset. If she's on the armchair and you want to sit down, shoving her off will get you hissed at.

I’ve never won the lottery but when we have asked the dog to pick numbers he has won a decent prize every time.

I think they just have differently tuned senses. They can hear frequencies of sound that we can't perceive, their sense of smell is far more sensitive than ours.
Probably all it is.
They know what illness smells like, before earthquakes there are probably sound indications that we don't pick up.

Okay. This is weird and I still don't understand it, but here goes.
Years ago we added a golden retriever puppy to our household. Our elderly cat made it very clear that he hated her and for the next 5 or 6 years they studiously ignored one another. Cat grew very old and became very ill and infirm. I didn't want to take him to the vet to have him put down as he always got stressed going to the vets, so I phoned the practice and asked for the vet to come down the next day to put our lovely cat to sleep. The following morning when my husband got up and went into the kitchen he found Cat and Dog curled up tightly together in Dog's bed. It had never happened before!

They are much more in tune with their senses than we are, and a lot of their senses are better.

My dog wouldn't take his eyes off me when I was in labour, I was at home waiting for contractions to get closer before we could go to hospital, he was keeping an eye on me even when it got late, he didn't go to sleep he stayed up and kept watch. He knew I was in pain (sadly PTS now RIP Barney)

I'm quite interested in elephants and you may find The Elephant Whisperer an interesting read by a guy who ran a game reserve called Thula Thula in S.Africa.

Similarly Dame Daphne Sheldrick (Nairobi elephant Orphanage) has written an interesting book which includes stuff that makes you think about ellie abilities.

I don't think it's a sixth sense as such, it's more that their ordinary 5 senses are much more acute than ours and they react to things that we wouldn't necessarily notice, probably because we are too tied up in things like what the latest cliffhanger is in our current favourite TV programme/novel or how to construct that killer social media argument or what to have for tea. Animals don't have to think about any of those things.

What do we mean by ‘sixth sense’, and how would we define it, measure or study it?

We do know that, for example, a dog’s sense of smell is enormously more sensitive than ours, which is why they are used so successfully to sniff out drugs, explosives etc. My friend who is a vet compares a human’s ability to understand the sensitivity of a dog’s nose to a dog’s ability to understand the words printed in a newspaper.

An obvious example of certain animals having senses which humans lack is the incredibly sophisticated echolocation capabilities of bats.

Yes, my dog knows my car and also knows when we get close to our destination. We’ve been getting ready to go on holiday and he knows that we’re leaving; been fretting at night and doesn’t want us out of sight.

My old boss’s dog used to lie on the bed if him and his wife went out (I’d babysit) and would be miserable all night. About 5 minutes before they would come home, the dog would wake up, bark and stand by the door. They always got out of their taxi on the main road and walked into their estate so there was no way he could’ve heard, but did it every time without fail.

@Snippysocks

Okay. This is weird and I still don't understand it, but here goes. Years ago we added a golden retriever puppy to our household. Our elderly cat made it very clear that he hated her and for the next 5 or 6 years they studiously ignored one another. Cat grew very old and became very ill and infirm. I didn't want to take him to the vet to have him put down as he always got stressed going to the vets, so I phoned the practice and asked for the vet to come down the next day to put our lovely cat to sleep. The following morning when my husband got up and went into the kitchen he found Cat and Dog curled up tightly together in Dog's bed. It had never happened before!

That’s so sad but sweet I wonder if they knew or just decided to become friends after all that time? It makes you wonder. One of my old cats was ill with her heart and before I knew I’m sure one of my younger cats did. There were no outward signs but my younger cat took to snuggling and grooming her constantly. She was the same with my sisters little dog who had kidney disease.

I believe they do, I foster scared/nervous cats from my local animal shelter, I'm on my 31st cat, it's my job to get them used to being around people and learn to trust them so they can find their forever homes, practically all of them have acted differently before they went to their new homes and this was before I'd got their carriers out or anything, so nothing was noticeably different! My last foster cat slept on my bed with me for the first time in 3 months the night before she went to her new home, may just be coincidence, but I don't believe so!

My dogs and one cat I’ve had over my life have definitely been in tune with me. I came close to death after an operation and my cat would watch over me 24/7. She wouldn’t even blink which was a bit creepy at times. I had a puppy at the time which would follow her and copy her sitting watching me. The puppy dared to leave the room and my cat got up and whacked the pup hard on the nose with her paws. Well the puppy never left the room again. Sadly both have passed on since, and I have another dog who still watches over me and seems to know when I need comfort.

Around about December my cat Alf started snuffling my hairline on the left side of my forehead and only on the left side. He would deliver little nips to the area when I got into bed at night. In January I was told that I had breast cancer - in my left breast. Alf continued to do the same thing every night until I got home from hospital after having a lumpectomy. When I got into bed the first night after surgery he came up to me and had his usual snuffle around my forehead, licked it for a minute or so and then seemed satisfied and settled down to sleep on my feet. He has never nipped my forehead since but he does periodically have a sniff of my forehead from left to right, give me a lick and then settle down to sleep beside me.