I live in a farmhouse built in 1836, and I am convinced it's haunted.
I have a witness, too. Sadie, my German Shepherd, regularly stops dead in the hallway and stares, very intently, at absolutely nothing. She trots to the door, tail going, thrilled to greet a visitor who isn't there. She'll sit in the kitchen watching an empty corner with the calm, knowing look of someone who has been introduced and is simply waiting for me to catch up. If I'm honest, she's the main reason I stopped telling myself it was all in my head.
So as the nights draw in and Halloween creeps closer, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Are dogs the best ghost hunters ever? And what's really going on with that witchy sixth sense they seem to have?
Why dogs make the best ghost hunters ever
If you were putting together a paranormal investigation team, you'd want someone who hears what you can't, smells what you can't, sees in the dark and never gets bored of standing in one spot staring at a wall. I didn't have to look far. She was already asleep on the sofa.
They hear what you can't
Human hearing tops out at around 20,000 hertz, and it dwindles with age. Dogs can hear up to roughly 45,000 hertz, well into sounds that simply don't exist for us. In a house that's nearly two centuries old, that's a lot of material: creaking beams, pipes settling, the odd mouse in the walls. To me, a silent room. To Sadie, a full broadcast.
They smell what you can't (by a very long way)
We have around six million smell receptors. Dogs have anywhere from 125 million to nearly 300 million, depending on the breed, and their noses are estimated to be somewhere between 100,000 and a million times more sensitive than ours. They even breathe out through the slits at the side of the nose, so scent keeps building up on the receptors while they sniff.
Which means Sadie can tell who walked up the lane this morning, what the fox got up to overnight, and probably what was stored in the barn in 1890. An old farmhouse must smell like a library to her.
They see better in the dark
Dogs have a reflective layer at the back of their eyes (it's why they glow so alarmingly in photos) and more of the cells built for low light. They're far better than us at spotting movement in the gloom: a shadow on the landing, a moth by the curtain, headlights sweeping across the ceiling. All in HD, while I'm still fumbling for the light switch.
They never stand down
Most ghost hunters give up after a cold cup of tea and a creaky floorboard. Sadie will guard the same corner of the kitchen for forty minutes because something happened there once. Dedication like that can't be taught.
I had to dig a little deeper
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I had a geopathic survey done on the house – the kind that looks at the energy of a building and the land beneath it. It turned up some genuinely spooky findings.
And that's all I'm going to say about that, because if my daughters ever read this, none of us will sleep again. (Girls, if you've got this far: nothing to see here. Go to bed.)
Britain's most famous ghost dog
Of course, dogs haven't always been on the ghost-hunting side of things. For centuries in Norfolk and Suffolk, people told tales of Black Shuck: an enormous black hound with blazing eyes that roamed the coast and lanes at night.
His most notorious outing was on 4 August 1577, when – during a violent thunderstorm – he was said to have burst into the churches at Bungay and Blythburgh, bringing the Blythburgh steeple crashing through the roof. Scorch marks on the north door are still called "the devil's fingerprints" today. Many suspect lightning was the real culprit, with the legend growing in the retelling. But Bungay is clearly fond of its spectral hound: he's on the town's coat of arms.
Sadie, for the record, is far more welcoming. If she met a ghost, she'd bring it a toy.
So what's the deal with their witchy sixth sense?
Dogs have a long reputation for "just knowing" – that you're sad, that someone's poorly, that the postman is coming before the gate even clicks. It feels like witchcraft. A lot of it is their senses working at a level we can barely imagine.
They can smell your mood
In 2022, researchers at Queen's University Belfast collected breath and sweat samples from people before and after a stressful maths task, then asked four dogs – Treo, Fingal, Soot and Winnie – to tell them apart. The dogs could pick out the stressed samples by smell alone, even from people they'd never met. So when your dog glues themselves to your side on a bad day, that isn't coincidence. You've been rumbled.
They can sniff out illness
This is where the sixth sense stops being a party trick. The UK charity Medical Detection Dogs has trained dogs to detect the odour of 28 different diseases, including several cancers, and to alert their owners to life-threatening changes before they happen. If that isn't a superpower, I don't know what is.
They read us like a book
Dogs are expert people-watchers. They clock the car keys, the wellies, the particular sigh before a vet trip. Much of what feels like mind-reading is a dog who has studied you with the dedication most of us reserve for a good box set.
And when they stare at nothing?
The sensible explanation is usually one of these:
- A sound we can't hear – mice, insects, pipes or electrics
- A smell drifting in from somewhere we can't detect
- Dust, reflections or tiny movements catching the light
- Something they once saw in that exact spot and are still thinking about
That's the science. But I'd be lying if I said it was the whole story in our house.
Sadie's person
My husband passed away two years ago. Sadie was his dog.
Some time afterwards, I went to see a psychic. She told me he was always at the house – and then she asked whether the dog ever reacted oddly, because she'd been his dog.
I didn't need to think about it.
I know what the sensible explanations are. I've just written them out for you. But when Sadie wanders to the garden door, tail wagging, and stands there looking perfectly content at an empty lawn, I find myself thinking of him out there, pottering around the garden, doing what he loved most until he became ill. It's comforting, in a strange way. Whether it's a ghost, a memory, or simply a dog who still knows exactly where her person used to be, I'm happy to let Sadie keep watch.
Dogs don't forget their people. Maybe that's the real sixth sense.
A few sensible bits for the spooky season
If your dog is going to spend autumn on paranormal patrol, here's what's worth having to hand.
For the muddy investigations
Farmhouse life in autumn means mud, wet leaves and the occasional roll in something unspeakable. Not every muddy walk needs a full bath – a waterless foam handles everyday grime between proper washes. I've written about how dry shampoo for dogs works between baths, and Lady Lucia's Prebiotic Dry Shampoo Glow-Up Kit comes with its own bath pouf, which is as close to a proton pack as we're legally allowed to sell.
For when the spirits get noisy
Halloween brings a parade of small ghouls ringing the doorbell, and Bonfire Night follows hot on its heels. If your dog spends late October and early November convinced the house is under siege, have a read of Bonfire Night, separation anxiety and how hemp and valerian can help. And for the calming kit, there's Sadie's Unbothered Hemp & Valerian Calming Spray – yes, named after the ghost hunter herself. It's back in stock from 20 October, just in time for Bonfire Night.
For the seasonal shedding (not ectoplasm, I promise)
If you're finding ghostly tufts of fur in every corner, it's probably the season, not the spirit world. My guide to why your dog is shedding so much right now explains what's normal and when to look closer.
And the one thing that really is scary
Chocolate and anything sweetened with xylitol are toxic to dogs. Keep the trick-or-treat haul well out of reach, and if you think your dog has helped themselves, ring your vet straight away rather than waiting to see.
Happy haunting
Whether your dog is a fearless ghost hunter or the sort who hides behind you at the first creak, their senses really are extraordinary – and they spend most of them keeping an eye on us. I'd love to hear whether your dog does the same. Does yours stare at empty corners or greet visitors who aren't there? Tell me. I promise I'll believe you.
