Animal Investigators

Ginger* is a 9 year old mixed canine living in Roanoke. DCMAG had the honor of having Ginger and her trainer Dake on a recent investigation.

Many haunted residents tell how the family members who behave the strangest are dogs and cats, and Dake had an idea. As an accomplished dog trainer, he had the idea of training his canines to look for paranormal activity. Since dogs do experience much of the phenomena (and cats are nearly impossible to train for this) it makes sense to use dogs to look for ghosts. Since dogs have very strong senses and are vital to many occupations (police, fire, bomb-squad, the blind, security guards, etc.) Let’s just look at a few of keen senses of a dog:

Smell: Many breeds of dogs have very strong senses of smell, and will often zero in on the source of the smell. If a paranormal group has an exact location of the source of the smell, and there is no explainable reason for the odor, then they’re on to something! If a police officer can use a K-9 unit to sniff out bombs or drugs, then we can use a trained dog to sniff out the source of those foul odors that often come in haunted places. Once the dog gets the scent, they will look for the source. When you find the source, you usually know by then that it is nature, and you know it is accurate (after all, she’s not the one beefing up the website).

Sight: To watch Ginger catch a Frisbee in the dead of night is phenomenal! Dogs have some strong eyes! And often they are better at zooming in on those little things that dart around in the corner of our eyes. How many times have we seen dogs bark at what appears to be nothing? Plus, notice how quickly a dog can spot a squirrel, cat or (unfortunately) a skunk! They not only zoom in on the hapless victim with their keen eyes, but they can also track them with the smell factor. Despite being colorblind, dogs can still spot many things we do not notice until they are right up in our faces!

Hearing: Another area where dogs excel, and Ginger triumphs! If a strange noise is heard in a haunted home, Ginger can be given a command to run right to the source of that noise and pinpoint the exact location of any creak, groan or thump. This way we can determine if the noise came from a pipe, door, person or anything of a more supernatural origin! This is also helpful in dangerous places where the living are scarier than the dead. Chances are if you are in a bad area you will be a little safer with a German Shepard in tow!

When we put these three senses together what we have is a valuable asset to paranormal investigations, in addition to loyalty and protection. Once you get past the occasional lick on your hand and the wet nose, what you have is an excellent paranormal agent!

So how did Ginger do? She was wonderful! She zoomed in on several strange sounds, and at times when we felt unusual presences in certain areas she reacted to them by perking up and looking like there was someone else there. Later in the night things died down a little more, however, and it is quite possible that the ghostly residents simply didn’t like dogs. The experiment was interesting, fun and informative, and I look forward to working with Dake and Ginger again soon!

(*Names have been changed to protect the Frisbee chewers.)

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