animal spirits, animal ghosts, animal apparitions

[johnny]

I'm looking into something that some are claiming as the spirits of animals in a popular location.  Now I've heard a couple different things about animal spirits and because the perspectives are so conflicting I'm not sure what to think of it, really I think it's a load of bull jerky and a marketing scheme as there's no  backed up experiences by the staff but is claimed by the owners. The location, now a bar/restaurant used to be the location of the local butchery during the pioneering days.  Any thoughts on this?

[MichaelF (FPIE)]

I don't see any reason that animals (or anything) couldn't imprint for a residual haunting.  On the fence about intelligent apparitions though.

[ttjoon]

Hmmmm. One hint might be that it was once a local butchery.  Other than the ones being slaughtered, what kind of animals hang around such a business?....Dogs, cats.

Until you've seen an apparition of an animal, don't be so quick to nay say it.  It does happen and there is truth to it.  I know someone who saw one just recently on an investigation.  In fact there were several people who saw it at once.  A cat, to be exact. 

[johnny]

OK, glad to hear about one experience Tracy and thanks for your input Michael!  To be more specific, there are reports of hearing cows and seeing an apparition of a cow or cows and no other animals.  There's no cows there now, it's in a populated area on a busy street.  I agree, being that it was a butcher shop in the pioneering days until up to a couple decades ago, the cow correlation seems to make sense.  (sigh) i think i was hoping to hear that they don't exist at all I think, now I'll have to eat there and talk to the management and staff there out of curiosity.

[bellalaghoste]

Well near my home in San Pedro there is a story of a large home called the vanderlips manson.  They say it haunted with gaurd dog that are spirits.  Four of them to be exact.  I do not think I true though.  But have been told a lot of stories with ghost aniamals.

[johnny]

Hmmm...   good stuff, more to look into.  I spent lunch hour talking to an anthropologist/historian today at one museum trying to track down resources. This has to do with an animal spirit story i just heard about 2 hours ago.

I didn't make it to the cow location today for lunch but did spend my hour in one of the many museums in town, we only have about 90,000 people living in the city but it seems like more sometimes, tourists everywhere!  I spent the time talking with the lady working the front desk at a museum who had found a book i was looking for (i bought it of course). She has been an anthropologists for the past 20+ years and so we exchanged our information about the area and I told her what I was doing, basically documenting cases of "ghosts" in the area and documenting historical and cultural references to any of the reported activity and their locations as much as well as conducting paranormal investigations in the area.(i'll update as this project makes progress, I've just begun to do preliminary interviews with locals and submitted proposals to a couple locations). We pretty much ended up talking about the same locations in our discussion and had a lot of the same stories and lots of claims of experiences. But what surprised me was that she has had a few personal experiences in the city I'm researching, in particular with an animal spirit.

I asked her about animal spirits and she goes into this story of her first moving to the area to go to UCSB and how her and her roommate lived with the spirit of a cat in the apartment for a long time. She describes the cat as more of a dark gray shadow with transparency, in a cat shape and it would do cat like things, like walk around her legs when she was ironing and when she was cooking.  Then one day, while they (her and her roommate) were either at school or work, a fire broke out from the ceiling fan in her place and pretty much ruined everything.  If the fire didn't get it, the water from the hoses did.  She then found out firemen broke down their door down during the fire, thinking there was a cat inside. However, they never owned a cat.

She said right after they had repaired and renovated the place (replacing the flooring, carpets, walls, basically a new apartment) the cat spirit faded away a lot. When she finally had to move, she said she thought she saw it so she left it cat food and catnip as an goodbye.  She is not convinced, but she thinks the cat may have followed her home and is still around her but again, it's faded away quite a bit after the apartment was renovated.

I'm sure I'll be talking to her again as this project moves forward, but I thought it was an interesting lunch today!

[Kristen]

I don't know about anyone else, but my pets seem to have a personality of their own.  In my thoughts, anything with a personality can have a spirit, so I firmly believe that there are animal spirits out there, domesticated  or otherwise.

Just my 2 cents.

[ldwalkup]

There is a book out "Animal In Spirit" by Penelope Smith.  Has anyone read it? 
I would like to think my pets have a spirit.  Tomorrow we have the unfortunate task of putting down our beloved little dog of 13 years.  She has been a sweet pet to us.  I hope she comes back to visit us and let us know she's all right on the other side.  We'll dearly miss her.  It's like losing a member of the family. 

[johnny]

There is a book out "Animal In Spirit" by Penelope Smith.  Has anyone read it? 
I would like to think my pets have a spirit.  Tomorrow we have the unfortunate task of putting down our beloved little dog of 13 years.  She has been a sweet pet to us.  I hope she comes back to visit us and let us know she's all right on the other side.  We'll dearly miss her.  It's like losing a member of the family. 

Thanks for the reference to the book, I'll have to look around for that title.  We have the Big Dog Parade each year (in fact this weekend) in my neighborhood and this year the Dog Whisper, Cesar Millan is in town as a judge. He will be a judge at the parade tomorrow.  Lots of folks are lining up to see him it seems, he's really popular amongst dog owners.  He doesn't claim to talk to doggies in the afterlife but does claim to understand dog language and know how to communicate with them to address their behavioral problems.   

[ldwalkup]

I think I'll look for the book this weekend.  Barnes & Noble will probably have it.