Can dogs really see ghosts?

You may have wondered this question at least once. Especially when your puppy suddenly barks at the air at night, it can be quite eerie. Haha.

When they keep barking at the air, their gaze is so serious that it gives you chills.

Dogs have more sensitive senses than humans, being able to smell tens of thousands of times better and hear very high-frequency sounds.

They can hear the tiny flutter of a bug's wings or the vibrations of wires in the walls that we cannot hear. So, the reason dogs bark at the air is not necessarily because of ghosts.

However, it is also true that scientific explanations alone cannot account for all phenomena. For example, some people say, "I think my dog feels my deceased father."

Sociologist Mark Eaton provided an interesting explanation of where such beliefs come from.

He states, "Many people believe that children and animals are more attuned to spiritual beings than adults."

The reason is simple. Adults grow up learning cultural perspectives like 'there are no ghosts' and 'what you see is all there is' during the socialization process.

So, even if they see something strange, they brush it off thinking, "I must have been mistaken."

But animals and children lack such social filters, so they are thought to accept something we cannot feel more purely. And at that moment, when a puppy suddenly looks at the air and lowers its tail, people interpret that behavior as 'could it be seeing a ghost?'

This belief has existed for a long time. The Aztecs believed that dogs guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife, and in Japan, there is a proverb that says 'dogs can see ghosts.' In our country, it was said that if a dog howls at the sky at night, it means a ghost has passed by.

Scientifically, what dogs perceive is likely to be subtle smells or sounds, or air currents that we cannot detect, but it is also difficult to definitively say that it is 'not because of ghosts.'

This is because there are areas of perception that humans have not yet fully explained.

For example, dogs' sense of smell is said to not only detect odors but also emotions. Actual research shows that dogs can sense anxiety or stress just from a person's sweat and that when they see a sad owner's face, a sympathetic response occurs in their brains.

So, could they also detect other forms of energy or atmospheres that we do not know about?

Psychologist Loyd Auerbach states, "Ghosts are not physical phenomena, so they cannot be felt with ordinary senses," and adds, "Animals may have more intuitive extrasensory perception (ESP) than humans." While this ability has not been scientifically proven, many people still believe that 'our dog senses something.'

Another interesting point is that people's 'belief' acts as a framework for interpreting a dog's behavior.

For example, a person who does not usually believe in ghosts might dismiss a dog's barking as "there must be a bug," while someone who believes in the spiritual might feel, "I think my mother's spirit has come." In other words, believing that dogs see ghosts may not be due to the dog's behavior but rather the interpretation in the human mind. And perhaps that belief provides comfort to people, which is why it does not easily fade away.

If a dog is the presence that makes you feel that a loved one who has passed is still with you, then that is an emotional realm beyond science. Ultimately, there is no definitive answer to whether dogs see ghosts.

But what is clear is that dogs detect subtle changes in the world that humans cannot feel and express that through their behavior. And the reason that behavior resonates with us may be that we already hold the answers we want to believe in our hearts.

When a puppy suddenly looks at the air and lowers its tail at night, whether it is a ghost or not, we will likely continue to let our imaginations run wild.