Freaked out by dog barking - can they see ghosts?

[Yubgftr]

OK sort of light hearted but I'm interested to hear if anyone's dogs have been able to sense something they couldn't see or explain.

My dog always barks when someone walks past the window or knocks at the door, that is pretty standard but also the only time she really barks like that. This evening the curtains were closed and we were sat on bed, she fixated on the corner of the room suddenly and started barking as if she could see something. There was noone in room and no TV on, I'd just been quietly looking through phone but she kept doing the barking she does when she can see someone. I asked her what was wrong and she started to whimper - we left the room for a while after that!

I'm convinced she could see something although no idea what as there was nothing there!

How old is she ?

Could be hearing something in the wall?

Mouse under the floorboards or in the wall?

Honestly? Personally I would be much more concerned about rats/mice 😬

Mine can hear another dog at a distance of about 150 miles. Give or take. Scares me to death when she leaps off the sofa barking like a doggy banshee. Dogs appear to have really good hearing, so ghosts would be low on my list of what set her off!

She's 8 month old black lab, we're in a new build and only moved in 6 months ago but we live in countryside so could be something knocking around I guess

My pup does this… always at the same corner in the hallway.
I presume she either heard something outside or there’s a shadow.

Maybe it’s a friendly ghost 😂

Full moon

My young lab occasionally does this too. Smells? Sounds? Who knows, but I hope not ghosts!

My money is on mice or the something making noises (pipes, heating, creaking floorboards).

She will be able to hear/smell something you can't not on a ghost way more in a mouse type way. If she was old I would have said doggy dementia.

Have you just put your heating on?
Because she's so young, I'm wondering if it's the first time she's heard the pipes moving?

Our lab went through a phase of behaviour where he'd 'watch' a fly or something buzz round the room and then snap at it. Except there was nothing there. Totally freaked me out and I thought we had ghosts.
We asked the vet about it during a routine visit, and he said it was attention seeking behaviour that was more common in smaller dogs.
I guess we were giving more attention to a newborn baby at the time!

It’s definitely not a ghost

My dog did this as a puppy and it's stopped now. I assumed she was hearing pipes or a neighbour plugging something into a wall etc. Things we wouldn't hear...

DDog can easily hear what's happening outside the house, so I guess yours is telling you there are rats or cats prowling around

Or you've got mice

My dog has, very occasionally, stopped and growled intently at particular spot in the ceiling / high walls where there was nothing I perceived as being different, interesting or unusual.

I don't believe in ghosts myself but I've struggled to come up with an obvious explanation as

• we did have upstairs neighbours but he was used to their comings and goings; this was different
• as a terrier he was fantastic at finding rodents, but had a totally different, more frantic reaction to them, and it didn't coincide with the one time we did have a mouse.
• he's on the young side of middle age so it's not dementia or indeed a puppy getting used to the central heating

We always say it's ghosts, not that we actually believe that, we're just short on plausible alternatives!

Ours knows when the fox passes through the garden