Can Pets See Ghosts? The Odd Questions Pennsylvania Pet Owners Are Asking AI Instead of Their Vet

Pets do plenty of things that leave their owners scratching their heads.

A recent survey found some owners now ask an AI chatbot about it before they ask their veterinarian.

Here are the odd questions Pennsylvania pet owners may recognize, and what research actually says.

Note: This is general information, not veterinary advice. Pet health guidance is subject to change, so talk to your veterinarian about your pet’s health.

Where These Questions Come From

The odd pet questions in this article come from a Talker Research survey of pet owners with internet access.

Darwin’s pet food commissioned the survey.

The online fieldwork ran from April 22 to April 28, 2026.

The results were published on August 31, 2026.

Examples of the offbeat questions are whether pets can see ghosts, whether dogs know they’re dogs and whether a pet is jealous.

Separately, 59% say they’ve changed how they care for their pet based on AI recommendations.

If you’ve changed how you care for your pet after asking AI, you’re in that group.

The Ghost Question

Ghosts lead the odd questions, and pet hearing gives you one measurable clue.

The Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine lists a dog’s hearing range as 67 to 45,000 hertz.

People top out near 23,000 hertz on that table, while cats reach about 64,000.

A Poodle, a Saint Bernard and a Chihuahua heard a tone at 46,000 hertz, just above the 45,000 in the table.

Reader’s Digest says dogs can hear twice as many frequencies as humans.

Alexandra Horowitz, a senior research fellow at Barnard College, suspects that people see ordinary dog behavior and reach past the more obvious explanations.

Stanley Coren, a psychology professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, says some people assume something psychic or supernatural about dogs, even when the dogs are doing normal dog behaviors.

Sometimes a staring dog is just looking or smelling, the way you might sit and plot dinner.

The Dog Identity Question

Whether dogs know they’re dogs is the second odd question, and researchers have tested pieces of it.

You can’t ask a dog, so researchers built tests around what dogs do.

A 2017 study in Behavioural Processes opens with the mirror test, which checks whether an animal recognizes itself in a mirror.

Dogs had not passed it as of its writing.

Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard College built a sniff version instead, which the paper’s title calls an “olfactory mirror” test.

Dogs sniffed canisters holding their urine, with and without another odor added.

They spent longer on the urine when another odor had been added to it.

That behavior implies the dogs recognized the odor as theirs.

They spent longer still on the odor of other dogs.

A 2021 study in Scientific Reports, from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, tested body awareness in 32 dogs.

Each dog stood on a mat and had to hand an object to its owner.

When the object was attached to the mat, the dogs stepped off sooner.

The authors call that convincing evidence of body awareness in dogs.

Both studies tested recognition of a scent or a body, which may stop short of whether your dog thinks of itself as a dog.

Psst! How many pet myths can you spot? Flip each card and see if you can get every one right.

The Jealousy Question

Whether a pet is jealous is the third odd question, and two studies have tested it in dogs.

A 2014 study from the University of California, San Diego, followed 36 dogs while their owners showed affection to what looked like another dog.

The dogs showed significantly more jealous behavior toward the dog lookalike than toward objects.

A 2018 study in Scientific Reports, from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, had owners ignore their dog and focus on a familiar dog, an unfamiliar dog or an object.

Dogs showed more jealous behavior when that attention went to another dog.

The Budapest authors add a caution: Researchers can argue over whether a dog’s emotional state matches the human feeling of jealousy.

So if your dog pushes in when you pet another dog, researchers have measured that kind of behavior.

How Dog Jealousy Was Tested

The 2014 San Diego dog jealousy study ran three one-minute conditions, and owners were told to ignore their dog.

In one condition, owners showed affection to a realistic stuffed dog that barked, whined and wagged its tail.

In the other two, owners directed affection at a jack-o’-lantern pail or read aloud from a children’s book that played melodies.

Researchers counted behaviors that included snapping, getting between the owner and the object, and pushing or touching.

What Else Owners Ask

Pet owners in the Talker Research survey ask AI about more than ghosts, including pet care products (52%) and their general curiosity about behavior (50%).

Many of them have also used AI tools to look up their pet’s health or nutrition.

Respondents turn to AI tools an average of seven times a week.

On the plus side, 90% say AI and online resources have made them feel more informed.

But 50% at least sometimes feel unsure about their pet care decisions after researching online.

If a search has ever left you second-guessing, you’re one of them.

Who Owners Trust

If you ask AI about nutrition or symptoms, you’re asking what pet owners in the Talker Research survey most commonly ask about health.

Even so, 71% named veterinarians as the source they trust most for health and nutrition advice.

A much smaller group says it relies primarily on AI tools.

Only 27% say they trust AI advice as much as human experts.

And 30% say using AI has made them more worried about their pet’s health.

A 2024 letter in Veterinary Medicine and Science covers the opportunities and challenges for owners who use AI chatbots in pet health care.

Its authors warn that owners relying solely on AI chatbots for medical advice could face misdiagnosis, inappropriate treatment and delayed professional intervention.