Stranger than fiction?

Extra-sensory communication between dogs and their owners has long been a subject of speculation among dog owners. It is now a well-established fact that some dogs will alert their owners to an approaching epileptic seizure by barking until someone comes to help, or by gently pulling the person to a safe place until the seizure is over.

The owner of one such dog, in an effort of research by curiosity, faked a seizure to see what his dog would do ... the dog politely ignored him.

Researchers at Liverpool University have described three cases of dogs who warn their diabetic owners when a `hypo' - low blood sugar - attack is imminent, even before the symptoms of sweating and faintness appear.

One such pet, a mongrel bitch, stops her owner from leaving the house until she has eaten a biscuit if she thinks an attack is on the way. She has also been known to nudge her owner awake in the middle of the night for the same reason.

In an effort to explain the phenomenon a group of Parisian doctors have reported that there is evidence of electrical changes in the brain a full seven minutes before an epileptic seizure begins.

It is presumed that the dogs can detect such changes, but just how they do it is another question.

Speculation has offered the explanation that dogs may detect a flickering of the eyelids or other subtle changes that even the sufferers themselves are unaware of. But that could not be the case with the little dog who wakes her owner up in the night to eat a biscuit.

Whatever it is that these special dogs can detect they are obviously far more sensitive than humans to the significant signs. The ability has been called a sixth sense by some people.

However, I do not see it as a sixth sense but rather a superior sensitivity to subtle changes in the human body. We all know that dogs can hear sounds at a higher pitch than we can - they respond readily to what we are unable to hear. Perhaps they are also aware of energy output, of electrical vibrations that are always emitted from the body of every animal form.

Perhaps dogs are more in tune with these vibrations and can tell when there is a fault coming up, or in progress. Whatever the answer, there are many owners who daily are thankful for their companion's hidden talent. - EP