What started my interest in this subject? Well, here's what happened to me, before I knew about zoophilia by the way:

Back in about 1981 I was out visiting a gay guy with gay friends. In case you are wondering now - not that's it's relevant, no I'm not gay, but I do I do have friends of many sexualities. Anyway, it was a kind of hippy outing and we were all quite high on smoke (yes, I admit I've done that weed when I was younger) and listening to some quite weird music ("The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony" by the band "Greenslade").

One of my friends was a herpetologist (snakes) and so was the person who's house it was. He was well out of his head on the smoke and music and was dancing sexily to the music (getting good this isn't it!!!). Anyway, one of the other guys handed me a snake (I can't remember what species - it was quite a small non-venomous constrictor of some sort).

Why he handed it to me I don't know!!! Now I've no idea know how the animal up on the eroticism of the atmosphere unless it was telepathy, but it's penes (snakes have two penises - the plural is penes) popped out and it ejaculated (quite messily). We all had a good laugh at that, but the weird thing was the guy had been trying to get it to mate with the female snake unsuccessfully for ages. We popped him back in the tank ( the snake silly!) and he had no trouble in starting to mate with the female straight away.

So, there's my own example of animal telepathy of the sexual kind, below are some other things I've found for those of you who like me are interested in this subject. At the end of this section there's also a tests section for you to do with your own pet to see if they show telepathic abilities.

Here are some of the tales that people have told on USENET. This first one is about a psychic ferret!:

"I don't know if you'd consider this a 'ghost story' per say and I'm the first to admit it could just be wishful thinking. Has anybody out there had any experience with pets are psychic? I own ferrets and at one time owned a few, two them being full-blooded brothers, named Sinjin and Stringfellow. I still own Sinjin, he's over 6 years of age, which is getting up there in years for a ferret. I had to have String put to sleep last year because of cancer. String was not mentally ready to die, I think, and fought the anesthia that knocked him down before the fatal shot was injected. Unfortunately, the cancer was too severe to keep him alive and he would have suffered if I hadn't had him put to sleep. Anyway, I did not take Sinjin with me (a decision I now regret and have changed) when String was put down. Sinjin spent the next week looking for his brother and sleeping in the last places String had slept in. It was heartbreaking to watch. A few weeks later, Sinjin (who really did not play was actively since String's demise) began to run and jump and play, alone, but acting as if someone else was with him, playing like he used to with String. This has happened a few times since and it surprises me because he does not play with my other ferrets the same way and now that he's older, he doesn't get around like he used to (the vet suspects arthritis in the hips, so he limps sometimes when he walks). I like to think that String has come back to play with him and it makes me feel good,like String is watching over his brother. Then I start thinking maybe I'm HOPING or WISHING it's String to make me feel better. I never see a ghost or anything, but I firmly believe that animals see things humans can not."

"When a friend of mine had an apartment (that was part of an old house, converted to apartments, he looked up the history and a number of people had died there (all of natural causes).

One of them was an old man, who rumor has it was a very mean and abraisve person. Shithead(my friends cat) would at time just stare at a corner, hiss, and all of his hair would stand on end like he was ready to fight."

"A few years ago my ex-wife and I raised a baby bluejay who had been kicked out of the nest because his beak was deformed. We had him for two years, and he was like a member of the family. Jay sang like a canary, and loved singing along with the stereo. He could also mimic a lot of sounds, including things like the TV remote or the microwave oven.

We also had a alarm system, with a controller on the wall in the living room. For some reason, Jay never mimicked the sounds of the controller, though it was in the same room with him. I think it was because whenever we were using it, we were either leaving or coming home, so he was thinking more about that than the sounds.

Jay died suddenly and tragically, when he ate some dried pasta that caught in his gullet. We were very upset. About two weeks later, we were both awakened in the middle of the night by what sounded just like the controller on our burglar alarm. We were alarmed ourselves, because it sounded for all the world that someone had disarmed it. Naturally, I went to investigate, but found everything normal. The alarm was still enabled.

We went back to bed, but as I thought about it the next morning, I realized two things; First, the cadence of the sounds was quite familiar ... four quick beeps in pairs, da-da, da-da, followed after a short pause by beep, beep. Our controller required four digits to disarm, two to arm. Also, the code had repeated numbers (I'll give a different one, of course), something like 8989 to disarm, 45 to set.

The second thing I recalled was that, while the sound _SEEMED_ like the sound of our controller, it was somehow different ... different loudness or timbre.

Then I got to thinking about Jay. Every morning, he'd get to sit there in his cage (he was allowed free when we were home, but in a large cage while alone), and watch us go through the ritual of setting the alarm and going out the door. Then he got to see the process undone when we returned. Surely the controller was an important part of his life.

About the six beeps instead of two or four, I remembered that, being a forgetful sort, I often have to return to the house to get my dark glasses, or hanky, or something else I meant to take with me. On those occasions, I'd come back in the house. Since the alarm had a 60-second delay, I'd typically punch in the disarm code, da-da, da-da, and then immediately re-arm it again, beep, beep. Then I'd grab what I needed and split.

That's when I realized what was subtly different about the sound. It wasn't the sound of an alarm controller, it was the sound of a bird mimiking the controller. It was Jay, I'm sure.

The way I figure it, though he never made that sound in life, he'd come to know it intimately, and associate it with coming and going. I firmly believe he came back to sort of say, 'Hi, I came to say hello, but now I have to go again.'"

And finally here's one that was sent in in response to Globalzoo's appeal for information on this subject:

"I'm not sure whether this is relevent but here's a story my dad and aunt told me about a cat the family had during WWII.

The family lived in Bolton, a North-Western industrial town near Manchester, in the UK. The house was near to one of the main railway lines linking North and South that passes throught the town, and they were always aware that sooner or later the area would be a target for the German bombers that regularly pummled Manchester's Salford Docks.

One ordinary day in late 1941, Sandy, my aunt Sally's cat, started to act very strangely. It sat under the dining table and refused to come out, growling at anyone who came near it. Then it started to dart around the room meowing and clawing its way up the wallpaper. This was unusual as the cat was quite old and seemed to acting with the energy of a kitten. Everyone thought the cat had gone mad, and laughed at its antics. My dad was 12 years old and remembers it vividly. Eventually it stopped racing around and went back under the table, refusing to come out even for some precious meat, which was scarce during wartime.

Later that evening, the air-raid sirens blew and everyone decided to stay in the house because there had been so many false alarms and practice alerts, that nearly everyone ignored the alarms. Anyway, my dad and his sisters were more interested in the curious behaviour of the family pet.

By the time the heavy drone of bombers could be heard overhead, it was too late to risk being caught in the open streets during a raid. The family stayed in the house in the room that earlier had been the scene of Sandy's mad antics. Suddenly a hissing whistling sound rose above the steady drone, and my dad realised that a stick of bombs was falling and getting closer. The German bombers often dropped bombs in groups which fell in a line, like the carriages of a train and arrived with deadly accuracy.

The first rush of air was overwhelming like the air itself was alive, and then the actual booming blast of the full detonation arrived at the house and blew the internal doors so hard that the handles of the doors gouged marks in the plaster of the walls they hit. Rattling like castanets, all the internal doors swung too and fro in their frames and my dad clung to his two younger sisters to protect them. A split second later a deafening wall of noise swept over them along with the crash and tinkle of splintering glass flying like sharpened daggers across the street. The stick of bombs had landed very close, but thankfully not on top of them.

After the dust had settled, literally, the cat reappeared from under the table and everyone was glad of the forewarning. My granddad held the cat in his arms and said "you knew didn't you, Sandy?". The ginger tom simply narrowed his eyes and meowed his usual croaked reply.

That air-raid killed 3 people and the black labrador dog belonging to a local sweet store owner, who's bedridden father died too. The dog died by his side. Even the church clock was splinter damaged and my dad's school was hit.

When my dad, a schoolboy at the time, went to see the destruction he said that a stick of seven bombs had landed in a straight line straddling the railway-line. The line pointed directly at our home.

Years later, my dad found out, from a very reliable source, that bombers usually carried bombs in racks of eight. Had there been an eighth bomb, I would not be here. Perhaps it had failed to drop or failed to explode and now lies in the old railways sidings. Who knows.

Well. There it is and it's true. Cats are special. I feel I have my family now because of one."

OK, well that's all well as far as it goes, but maybe it's time to look at the science of all this, and that's what the next section deals with.

Scientific Investigation.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake was very senior biochemist at Cambridge, and he believes dogs have psychic powers.

He has done experiments on whether dogs can tell when their masters are about to return home. He claims to have detected psychic ability in several species of houeshold pets, including cats, birds, and even snakes. But he thinks that dogs have the strongest telepathic sense. In particular he has studied a terrier called Jaytee.

Jaytee's owner had noticed his dog's habit of looking for her out of the window each night as she returned from work. When she lost her job and started coming in at different times she noticed that the dog still seemed to be able to tell when she would arrive.

Jaytee's owner contacted Dr Sheldrake, who she knew was interested in animal psychic powers. The scientist set up video cameras and gave the owner a transmitter that told her when to come home (at random times). She even came home in different cars so that the dog couldn't tell it was her car arriving. In over 153 tests Dr Sheldrake believed that the dog showed precognition 80 percent of the time.

Dr Sheldrake thinks that this can all be explained by morphic fields, and while his interpretation of the cause of animal telepathy may be open to question, it seems clear that there is something inexplicable going on. The next section has some tests for you to do a little investigation of your own animal's powers.

Test Your Animal's Psychic Powers

Now these tests are NOT very scientific, but they are fun to do. It should be noted that only experiments that involve zero cruelty to animals are mentioned. Any experiment that scientists have carried out that involves cruelty to an animal is excluded. Here at Globalzoo we do not approve of needless cruelty to animals and so will not suggest any test involving cruelty. We believe the majority of our readers, however curious of the subject, would be offended and upset at reading such material.

Ghost detection: the graveyard test

This is designed to see if your animal can detect or see ghosts that you cannot. It generally almost always works well with dogs, less well with other species but other species do sometimes respond well. It is recommended that you do not attempt this test alone, a human observer with you and your animal during the ghost test is adviseable. Go with your assistant and animal to a place reputedly haunted where you may take your animal, or to a graveyard. Observe your animal and fill out the form below.

Animal seems:

quiet Y/N

alert Y/N

uneasy Y/N

excited Y/N

seeing something Y/N

terrified Y/N

if animal terrified, leave immediately

Did animal:

Stare as if seeing something Y/N

Jump or snarl at invisible thing Y/N

Cower away from invisible thing Y/N

Chase or greet something invisible Y/N

Refuse to go near any area Y/N

Seem to hear something you could not hear Y/N

Fur stand up Y/N

Did you or your observer notice:

change in temperature Y/N

uneasy feeling Y/N

unaccountable sounds Y/N

feel as if being watched Y/N

feel something unseen touch you Y/N

see white mist or an apparition Y/N

you hair stand on end Y/N

There is no score for the ghost test, the results are up to you and your observer to interpret.

Does your pet know when you're coming home?

This test is designed to test psychic link with you. It works best with dogs but it's worth trying with cats. You will need an assistant. This test takes place over three days. When you go out for the day get an assistant to watch your animal closely just before the time you have agreed that you will return. Vary the return time over a three day period. Get the assistant to complete the form below on each run of the test:

5 minutes before return, did the animal become more active?

3 minutes before return did the animal move towards or look toward the door?

1 minute before return did the animal become excited?

On return did the animal greet you?

Total YES

Total NO

Score

Yes 9-12 : Strong link

Yes 5-8 : Good link

Yes 1-4 : Room for development

All No's : So we're not all psychic

This involves you, your animal, and an assistant.

With your animal and the assistant out of the room hide your animal's favourite toy in a place it would not usually be.

Remaining silent, bring the assistant and your animal into the room.

Do not signal your assistant where you have hidden the toy.

Concentrate your mind for 5 minutes on an image of the toy in it's hiding place, imagining you and your animal playing with the toy together.

Score

Animal fell asleep before 5 minutes ended 0

Animal tried to get out of room 1

Animal started to play with assistant 2

Animal searched around room but did not stop at hiding place 3

Animal investigated 2 or 3 places including hiding place 4

Animal went straight to toy 5

Upon completion of this test please present your animal with the toy.

Leave your assistant and animal alone in the experiment room.

Your assistant should have some of your animal's favourite food and show it to your animal.

The assistant then hides the food showing the animal where it is.

Then your assistant takes the animal into another room.

You then enter the room concentrating on your animal thinking about the food.

As soon as a location enters your head go and see if the food is hidden there. Try a few locations as they occur to you.

Upon completion of this test please get your assistant to retrieve the food and have you present your animal with the food.

Score

You did not find the food after several attempts 0

No locations occurred to you and you went to a random place 1

You found the food but it was where you expected the assistant would hide it. 2

You found the food after a few attempts 3

You found the food directly 4

The walkies test

Sit close to your animal but not touching.

Imagine yourself preparing to to take your animal for a walk.

Project this image into your animal's mind by looking at it and concentrating for 5 minutes.

Score

Animal fell asleep 0

Animal went to place food was hidden in previous experiment 1

Animal became excited and wanted to play 2

Animal went to look out of window 3

Animal ran to door or fetched lead ready to go out. 4

Total of last three experiments

10-15 Strong telepathy

5-10 Potential but needs development

0-5 Stay with the ball games

Clairvoyance Test

These tests take place over three days. Everything should be carefully noted down. Each test should be done once a day for three days.

Cookie test

equipment:

4 envelopes

1 cookie/biscuit (or chews) (animal's favourite type) NOT chocolate or chocolate chip cookies unless special animal chocolate is used as ordinary chocolate can be seriously harmful to animals (deadly sometimes to dogs).

3 pieces of card same size as cookie.

cling wrap

sticky tape

with animal out of room

mark envelopes a, b, c, d.

wrap cookie in cling wrap to prevent smell detection

put cooking in envelope "a" and seal

place cardboard cutouts in b, c, and d, and seal

place envelopes on floor 1 metre apart

get animal and ask it to find

allow two minutes

if found correctly unwrap cookie and give to animal with praise immediately

note results, repeat daily for three days

after two minutes time elapsed unwrap cookie and give to animal anyway

Dinner in box test

Repeat the cookie test but using the animal's normal food in a bowl wrapped and hidden in one of four closed cardboard boxes.

Score

Total all correct selections:

14-18 correct strongly clairvoyant or is ex drugs sniffer detector

10-13 correct good clairvoyance

6-9 correct not really, this is just chance

0-5 correct not as hungry as you thought huh?

Animal Telepathy section UPDATE June 1999

There are numerous stories of psychic pets. Here are some brief examples:

MacKenzie King, who was for 22 years the Prime Minister of Canada had a premonition involving his dog, Pat. The man dropped his watch and it stopped at 4:20. He felt he knew his dog would die at that time tomorrow, and indeed that night the dog crawled into his masters bed, and at 4:20 am, died.

I wonder if your dog is as faithful as Winston and Fido were. In the south of England Winston made his way to the place his master died (how did he know that?) and stayed there for many years. The people even built him a kennel there and fed him so that he could stay.

In Italy a dog called Fido (which means faithful) remained kept a 13 year vigil for his dead master, and was awarded a medal by the Government for his loyalty.

This dog is said to have returned from the dead. Unfortunately Globalzoo at this time has no further details of the story but if more comes to light it will be reported here. While returning from the dead may seem dubious, there are several well documented cases of extraordinary animal feats that seem to involve the supernatural. For instance, how did a dog called Bobby in 1923 walk 3000 miles home, stopping on the way with many families who took him in and fed him. The people who helped him along the way were witnesses and were traced. Bobby had become lost while his owners were on vacation, 3000 miles from home. He walked all 3000 miles across America and crossed the Rockies and several major rivers, to turn up, thin, his feet worn through TO THE BONE, but otherwise well, on his master's doorstep. He was awarded the Oregon humane society medal.

Look out for more updates to Animal Telepathy at Globalzoo. We have a lot more material that we haven't been able to include yet.

Just as a final bit of science to share with your pet - even as small as mice or as large as horses - another experiment you can safely do is to mark out a grid of numbers and place the pet on a square at random, then try to will it to move to a square of your choice. If you mark the squares on an old rug you can turn it around to eliminate chance. You could even do this with horses if you scratch out a big enough grid in their field, although you'd have to be pretty dedicated to do it - and there'd be no turning the field around!

Psychic Pets & Spirit Animals : True Stories from the Files of Fate Magazine (Fate Presents)

by Fate Magazine Editor

Paperback - 272 pages (February 1996)

Llewellyn Publications; ISBN: 1567182992 ;

Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x 6.87 x 4.17

Amazon.com Price: $4.99

Psychic Pets: supernatural true stories of paranormal animals.

by Psychic World's features editor John Sutton

Paperback - 121 pages (1997)

Bloomsbury, London; ISBN: 0747531463

I'm afraid it's not known if this is still in print.