CLEVER canine Jaytee has been the subject of a series of experiments designed to prove he has telepathic detection powers.

When 15-year-old Jaytee's curious owner, Pam Smart, 46, saw an advertisement in a national newspaper in 1994 asking pet owners with seemingly psychic animals to get in touch, she decided to give it a go.

She wrote off to Dr Rupert Sheldrake, who was conducting research into the subject, after her father, Bill Smart, who died in 1998, convinced her that Jaytee had telepathic powers.

Pam, of Kay Brow, Ramsbottom, said: "My dad used to say every time I went out that Jaytee would always know when I was coming home. It was strange because he even knew at the point where I was just thinking about coming home from work at a school in Manchester because he would go to the window well before I was home.

"I obviously never thought anything of this because I thought it's what most dogs did. But my parents knew it was something more than just routine." In fact, half of all dogs and one in three cats know when their owners are coming home, according to research by London-based Dr Sheldrake, whose 1999 book Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home won the British Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year prize.

Various tests, such as varying the time and transport method of Pam's journey home, were carried out over a five-year period. The doctor tried to eliminate every possibility that the reactions of Jaytee, named after American singer-songwriter James Taylor, were anything but telepathic.

The series of experiments, which included Pam travelling by taxi, trains and bicycle, found Jaytee's actions were nothing to do with his hearing. Pam, who now works for Dr Sheldrake as a research assistant, also came home at different times of the day and carried a bleeper which was triggered by the doctor when he wanted Pam to go home. Dozens of other dogs took part in the research but Pam and one other owner were the most involved because they were happy to have their lives disrupted to take part in the studies.

Dr Sheldrake, a biologist author, was a fellow and director of studies in biochemistry and cell biology at Clare College Cambridge until 1973, and has worked in the US and India.

He said: "In more than 100 trials we videotaped the area by the window where Jaytee waited during Pam's absences, providing a continuous, time-coded record of his behaviour. Jaytee behaved in the same way when he was tested repeatedly by sceptics anxious to debunk his abilities. Telepathy seems to be the only hypothesis that can account for the facts."

l Dr Sheldrake's latest book, The Sense of Being Stared At, and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind, is published by Hutchinson priced at £17.99. Anybody wanting more information about any of the studies should go to www.sheldrake.org