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Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home by Rupert Sheldrake Review: A Provocative Scientific Inquiry Into Animal Perception
First published in 1999 and reissued in a revised edition in 2011, Rupert Sheldrake's Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home is a wide-ranging scientific investigation into unexplained animal behavior — from dogs that anticipate their owners' returns at unexpected times, to cats that appear to know when the vet visit is imminent, to animals that forewarn of epileptic seizures and seismic events. Drawing on a vast collection of case histories and proposing his theory of morphic fields, Sheldrake challenges the limits of conventional biology and asks readers to reconsider what animals — and the invisible bonds between them and humans — are truly capable of.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Pet owners and readers at the intersection of animal cognition, consciousness studies, and fringe biology who have witnessed inexplicable animal behavior and want a credentialed scientist to take those experiences seriously and situate them within a genuine theoretical framework.
Worth it if
Worth reading if you're open to following a Cambridge-trained biologist into territory that challenges mainstream science — and are comfortable with naturalistic case histories and theoretical argument rather than tightly controlled experimental design at every step.
Skip if
Skip it if you require hypotheses to sit within orthodox biological consensus, or if a heavy reliance on anecdotal case histories rather than controlled experimental evidence will undermine your confidence in the argument.
What readers & critics say
Kirkus Reviews praised the original edition as "an open-minded inquiry into animals' precognitive capabilities… attentive to the evidence and thoroughly investigative, conducted in the belief that science can be fun and rigorous, inquisitive as well as skeptical." Sheldrake's own site (sheldrake.org) summarises the book's thesis as demonstrating that pets and owners are "social animals linked together by invisible bonds… connecting animals to each other, to their owners, and to their homes in powerful ways."
“An open-minded inquiry… attentive to the evidence and thoroughly investigative, conducted in the belief that science can be fun and rigorous.”
— Kirkus Reviews“Sheldrake has gathered a vast number of case histories documenting animals that can tell when their owners are coming home.”
— Kirkus Reviews4.4from 482 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
Look inside the book
Preview the actual pages, via Google BooksIn This Review
- What Works & What Doesn't
- What the Book Actually Is and Argues
- The Morphic Fields Hypothesis
- Strengths: Breadth of Evidence and Scientific Seriousness
- Genuine Limitations and Who May Resist It
- Who This Book Is For and Why It Endures
What Works & What Doesn't
What Works
- Kirkus Reviews praised it as 'attentive to the evidence and thoroughly investigative' — combining genuine scientific rigor with accessible curiosity
- Covers an exceptionally wide range of animal behavior: domestic anticipation, seizure warnings, disaster premonition, migration, and homing across multiple species
- Sheldrake contextualizes his morphic field hypothesis within active debates in physics and cosmology, grounding the argument rather than leaving it purely anecdotal
- Endorsed by prominent animal behavior authors including Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
- Originally published in 1999 and substantively revised for a 2011 edition, reflecting the author's ongoing engagement with the material
What Doesn't
- The morphic field hypothesis sits outside mainstream scientific consensus, and readers committed to orthodox biological frameworks will likely find the central theory difficult to accept
- The book's evidence base relies heavily on naturalistic case histories rather than controlled experimental design throughout, which some readers will find an uneven evidentiary standard
A rigorous yet accessible challenge to mechanistic science, this book compiles extraordinary animal behavior into a case for invisible social bonds that mainstream biology has yet to fully reckon with.
What the Book Actually Is and Argues
Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: Fully Updated and Revised by Rupert Sheldrake front cover
Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home is a work of popular science, first published in 1999 and released in a revised and updated edition in the United States in 2011. British biologist Rupert Sheldrake — who studied natural sciences at Cambridge, philosophy at Harvard, and earned a Ph.D. In biochemistry at Cambridge, where he was also a Fellow of Clare College — draws on a vast number of case histories to document animals exhibiting behavior that conventional science struggles to explain. The central questions driving the book are concrete and everyday: How does a dog know its owner is returning home at an unexpected time? How do cats sense a vet visit before the carrier even appears? How do horses find their way back to the stable over completely unfamiliar terrain? Sheldrake extends the inquiry further, examining animals that anticipate epileptic seizures and air raids, cats that appear to sense who is on the phone, and the broader phenomenon of migration and homing across species — from dogs and cats to horses and parakeets.
“teaches us to question the boundaries of conventional scientific thought”
The Morphic Fields Hypothesis
To account for these phenomena, Sheldrake proposes the concept of morphic fields: what Kirkus Reviews describes as "self-organizing regions of influence, invisible blueprints as it were, with both spatial and temporal aspects, that interconnect and organize a system." Within this framework, channels of telepathic communication operate across vast distances — a type of connectedness Sheldrake situates alongside ideas from quantum entanglement theory, migration science, and cosmology. The fields carry a collective memory and an instinct for habitual patterns shaped through experience. Sheldrake's argument is not that these phenomena are supernatural but that they are natural in ways science has not yet mapped. By anchoring the hypothesis within disciplines that physicists and cosmologists actively debate, he keeps the discussion from tipping into the merely speculative, which Kirkus noted means "the word 'preposterous' never seems applicable."
Strengths: Breadth of Evidence and Scientific Seriousness
Kirkus Reviews, which assessed the original edition, praised the book as "an open-minded inquiry into animals' precognitive capabilities… attentive to the evidence and thoroughly investigative, conducted in the belief that science can be fun and rigorous, inquisitive as well as skeptical." That combination of rigor and curiosity is the book's most consistent strength. Sheldrake does not simply collect anecdotes — he frames them as data points within a broader theoretical structure, asking not just whether these things happen but why, and what the answer might mean for biology and consciousness. The range of case material is striking: the book moves from domestic pets to wild-animal migration to animals' apparent capacity to forewarn of medical crises and natural disasters. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep, is quoted in publisher materials calling the book something that "will turn our understanding of animals inside out," while Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs, described it as "wonderful… splendid and thought-provoking."
Genuine Limitations and Who May Resist It
The book's core limitation is inseparable from its ambition: the morphic field hypothesis remains outside the consensus of mainstream science, and readers committed to strictly orthodox biological frameworks will find the theoretical leaps difficult to accept. Sheldrake is proposing an explanatory model for phenomena that many scientists would contest even at the observational level, let alone the theoretical one. The book makes a strong cumulative case through case histories, but readers expecting controlled experimental design at every step, rather than a synthesis of naturalistic observations and theoretical argument, may find the evidentiary standard uneven. This is not a book that settles debates — it opens them, and it does so deliberately.
Who This Book Is For and Why It Endures
The book is designed for readers willing to follow a credentialed scientist into territory that challenges the boundaries of conventional thought. As the publisher's description puts it, the book "teaches us to question the boundaries of conventional scientific thought" and argues that the animals closest to humans "have much to teach us about biology, nature, and consciousness." Pet owners who have witnessed inexplicable animal behavior will find their experiences taken seriously and placed within a serious intellectual framework. Readers drawn to the intersection of animal cognition, consciousness studies, and the outer edges of biology — without requiring those edges to be neatly resolved — are the audience this book was built for. The fact that it has remained in print across decades, reaching a revised edition more than a decade after its original publication, reflects the durability of the questions it raises, even if those questions remain open.
Frequently Asked Questions
is Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: Fully Updated and Revised by Rupert Sheldrake worth reading
If you're open to a credentialed scientist challenging the boundaries of conventional biology, it's a genuinely compelling read. Kirkus Reviews called it "an open-minded inquiry into animals' precognitive capabilities… attentive to the evidence and thoroughly investigative," and the book has stayed in print across decades precisely because the questions it raises remain fascinating. That said, it's not the book for you if you need every claim backed by controlled experimental design rather than a synthesis of case histories and theoretical argument.
What is this book actually about
It's a wide-ranging scientific investigation into animal behavior that mainstream biology struggles to explain — things like dogs anticipating their owners' returns at unexpected times, cats sensing a vet visit before the carrier even appears, and animals forewarning of epileptic seizures and seismic events. To explain these phenomena, Rupert Sheldrake proposes the concept of morphic fields — described by Kirkus Reviews as "self-organizing regions of influence, invisible blueprints… that interconnect and organize a system" — through which telepathic communication can operate across vast distances. It's less about dogs specifically and more about the invisible bonds between animals and humans, and what those bonds might mean for biology and consciousness.
Is this book pseudoscience
Sheldrake's morphic field hypothesis sits outside mainstream scientific consensus, and readers committed to orthodox biology will find the theoretical leaps hard to accept — that's the book's core limitation and the reviewer is upfront about it. However, Sheldrake anchors his argument within disciplines that physicists and cosmologists actively debate, including quantum entanglement theory and migration science, which is why Kirkus noted that "the word 'preposterous' never seems applicable." He's not arguing these phenomena are supernatural, but that they are natural in ways science hasn't yet mapped.
Is this book good for pet owners
Pet owners who've witnessed inexplicable behavior in their own animals will find their experiences taken seriously here and placed within a serious intellectual framework, rather than dismissed. The book draws on a vast collection of case histories covering dogs, cats, horses, and parakeets, so the domestic-pet material is front and center. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs, described it as "wonderful… splendid and thought-provoking," which is a strong endorsement from someone who shares the target readership.
Does this book have actual science in it or is it just anecdotes
Sheldrake doesn't simply collect anecdotes — he frames them as data points within a broader theoretical structure, asking not just whether these things happen but why. The reviewer is careful to note, though, that readers expecting controlled experimental design at every step may find the evidentiary standard uneven, since the book relies heavily on naturalistic observations alongside theoretical argument. Think of it as rigorous popular science built on a cumulative case, not a series of peer-reviewed trials.
Is this book similar to When Elephants Weep
There's a meaningful overlap in spirit: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, the author of When Elephants Weep, is quoted in publisher materials saying Sheldrake's book "will turn our understanding of animals inside out," suggesting he sees a real kinship between the two. Both books push back against reductive views of animal inner life, though Sheldrake goes further by proposing a specific theoretical mechanism — morphic fields — to explain animal behavior, whereas Masson's work focuses more on animal emotion. If you loved When Elephants Weep, this is a natural next read, with the caveat that Sheldrake's ideas are more scientifically contested.
Is this book hard to read for someone without a science background
The reviewer describes it as "rigorous yet accessible," and Kirkus praised it as being "conducted in the belief that science can be fun and rigorous," so it's written for a general adult audience rather than specialists. Sheldrake does introduce the concept of morphic fields and draws on quantum entanglement theory, migration science, and cosmology, but these are used to contextualize, not overwhelm. Curious non-scientists — especially those drawn to animal cognition and consciousness — are squarely in the intended audience.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
- Further reading
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Rupert Sheldrake, Wikipedia
- 3
kirkusreviews.com
- 4
- 5
- 6
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