Asta may be getting on a bit (I regularly decline to reveal her age to commiserative dog walkers seduced by her looks and temperament, both of which remain sublime, on the grounds that it is impertinent to inquire of a lady’s age) but she has lost not an ounce of her joie de vivre or her supernatural gift of foreseeing people and events. The latter trait is often referred to as a dog’s ‘sixth sense’ a canine way of comprehending reality beyond the realms of science.

Experts are fascinated by the manner in which dogs seem able to predict seismic activity and barometric pressure changes. Perhaps a more reliable source of weather forecasts than the gesticulators on our screens.

Studies have revealed too that certain creatures (migrating birds, deer, foxes and possibly also dogs ) are aligned to the earth’s magnetic field. A possible explanation as to how some well documented dogs have found their ways home across hundreds of miles over many months the way birds migrate.

Asta doesn’t like bad weather, often refusing to go outside in the rain or extreme cold,  but as yet has not displayed unusual or unexplained distress or alerted Kim or I  to impending storms of which there have been many this winter of 2025/26. But distant sharp noises, a solitary not even loud firework streets away, is enough to make her climb the stairs and scramble into the bath. Which would be fine but for Kim’s environmentalist duty of keeping the cold and dirty bath water to flush the lavatory. There have been many times when we’ve discovered Asta in the darkness shivering in a tub of chilly water. 

Her tastebuds are in good shape. She seldom accepts treats from strangers which could because she questions their motives but is more likely to be she simply doesn’t like their choice of biscuit. She won’t eat butter free vegan croissants. In France some years ago she developed an appetite  for French boulangerie so much so that since then we always buy an extra croissant for her. We discovered her anti-veganism at a right-on 21st century cafe in Lewes where she turned her snout up at a nub of croissant offered her. At first we were alarmed and feared she was unwell. Only a closer inspection of the Generation Z menu did we discover the real reason: No butter!

Non of which comes anywhere close to explaining Asta’s inane talent of knowing when people, including myself, are approaching; out of sight but nearby. Each time she’ll perk up and make for the front door, often barking loudly. 

It’s long been known that dogs can detect certain illnesses in people. I remember maybe twenty years ago Asta’s predecessor Tashi Delek sleeping on the bed alongside a friend with terminal cancer. She never before or since climbed on to the bed with anyone else. Yet whenever our friend visited she stuck close to her sensing the pain she was suffering. Likewise Asta stuck uncharacteristically close to Kim during a recent spell of recuperation.

It’s thought such sensitivity is due to dogs being able to literally smell hormones and genetic compounds. They possess over 200 million olfactory receptors as opposed to the mere 5 million we humans have to make do with; possibly why fast foods are so popular, we can’t sniff the crap. Dogs can detect cancers (even distinguishing different varieties), Parkinson’s Disease, imminent narcoleptic, epileptic seizures and even migraines. Using urine samples some were taught to detect Covid-19.

Asta spends much of her time asleep upon one of her two beds. Her morning and afternoon walks do not amount to much. This morning both her front and hind legs gave out on the short distance between the living room and her breakfast in the kitchen. She understandably is happier, less stressed laying on her side. And yet later in the day, fast asleep, she apparently sprang to her paws and stood tail erect by the front door barking as I returned home after my daily promenade; still out of sight and a good 200 yards away we estimated allowing for the time between her leaping up and me stepping through the door. It seems she  had exactly the same reaction to an imminent return a few days prior. She couldn’t hear me and I can assure you my body odour is not so extreme as to be discernible at such a distance. 

Could this be Asta’s ‘sixth sense’, undiminished by time? Just when we thought she was becoming house bound and literally deaf to the world there is a part of her still capable of tracking people and events far off. It can’t be mere coincidence, not when she awakens and anticipates thus including those ever more frequent occasions when Kim is returning from the Midlands and still streets away. 

Somehow, Asta knows.