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Dog Behaviour and Art

A

Anonymous

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For the past few days the dog has been acting strangely.
Where the computer sits,to the right of it is a piece of artwork,it's a picture of a still lake with a few trees,it's quite old, my nan had it, then when she died it got passed on to this family,basically because theres nowhere else to put it.
The picture sits on the wall above my head,anyway a few days ago I'm sitting at the computer doing something mundane(as usual) doggie comes over to me and looks up and starts barking,not in a overtly fierce way,more of a playful yapping,I was ignoring him,trying not to give him too much attention,he was really getting on my nerves I looked at him and saw he wasn't barking at me but the picture.He stopped after a while and just sat opposite me looking up at it.
Above the sofa on the opposite side of the room sits another picture but larger,and he goes and sits opposite that most nights and just stares at it,also I've noticed his eyes are moving as though he's actually watching something.
I know babies and animals have a tendancy to stare intently at a certain area of a room(to creep people out probably)
Any ideas as to whats going on?
 
My cats used to do something similar with a large potted plant in our living room. It started suddenly - they'd stare at the tree for long periods of time, their eyes darting back and forth as if watching something. For months this went on. We'd joke about faeries and the haunted plant and whatnot.

One day, overcome with curiosity and feeling quite foolish, I got on my hands and knees on the floor and looked between my cat's ears at the plant as she was watching it. I'd heard somewhere that you can see what they see if you do this. Lo and behold, the plant was teeming with nearly-microscopic little spider mites. That's what they'd been fascinated with the whole time.

We had the plant treated and they lost interest in it promptly.

Perhaps your dog can see something you can't see - a moving reflection of some kind, maybe an insect, who knows. If it's only just started recently, whatever it is he's looking at has to be pretty recently developed. You say "most nights" he stares at the other picture - anything different about those nights? Does he not stare at it during the day? Has anything else in the environment changed recently? Is he acting normally otherwise?
 
He isn't acting normally actually,ever since he's started doing this,at night he will not stay in the living room when we go to bed,when all the lights are turned out he starts shaking wildly and looks all wide eyed and shoots up the stairs so to not be alone and he keeps going to his "safe place" behind the tv.
It's odd
 
Try taking the picture down and propping it against the wall or something and see what happens.
 
hmmm dogs have a high fortean sense. they can pick up stuff we cant, suppose your dog is picking up your nan through the paintings. she may want to communicate with you.
 
Well.....I have read a few fiction stories about paintings that changed.

Also, there is a painting called "The Crying Boy" that is rumored to cause fires in the homes of the people who have it. I have a picture in a book. I hope that doesn't count. :?
 
i remember someone made an auction of this haunted painting of a boy and his sister. they looked really creepy and had some of the most demonic eyes.
 
the painting in the twin peaks fire walk with me movie was the one of the scariest things i've ever seen. :eek!!!!:
 
Perhaps the dog wants to go for a frolic around a lake?
Maybe he just wants to get out more?
 
Thanks for all your input
he's a little calmer now,It's probably a phase,he's been spooked recently by fireworks,could have started off erratic behaviour.
The picture business still gives me the creeps though
Probably just appreciates art.
 
Interesting thread! I had a dog acted like that once.
Gave me quite a scare. My hobby is watercolour painting and one that I did of a Malay woman in a shawl turned out very well so I slipped the painting into a spare frame I had, and hung it up on the living room wall. That evening the dog sat there, staring at the wall and began growling with hackles raised! I thought a snake or a huge lizard might have crawled into my house! I sat beside old doggy to try and see what she was seeing. From the wall, the Malay woman stared back, her eyes aglitter. Well, that should teach me to go easy painting highlights on the eyes. Anyway, I took down the painting, called old doggy over. She walked all round it, gave it a number of prodigious sniffs and thereafter ignored the picture completely.

BTW some years later I did a watercolour of a lion dance. It turned out very well too, you could almost hear the firecrackers exploding.The Malay lady portrait came down and the lion dance picture went up. During the Chinese Lunar New Year, relatives and friends came to visit. A close friend turned up with a lady he introduced as a herbalist from Taiwan. Few days later, my friend phoned. He said the herbalist insisted that I should take down the lion dance picture At Once because it was very bad fengshui, she had very bad vibes looking at it.

Is there something about that particular wall…… :?:

Hmmm, maybe I could make some money on E-bay :idea: – haunted paintings….
 
mynah said:
Hmmm, maybe I could make some money on E-bay :idea: – haunted paintings….
Click to expand...

Do it!!!!
Lots of lolly to be made...
 
I've just complete an acrylic painting of a skul, black background, skull with blood etc from the eye sockets, kind of creepy looking, and i just propped it up and the dog has done pretty much as everyone else has described above, acting terrified of it, the fur on his back standing on end, and low to the ground, and barking at it, very odd.
 
RainyOcean said:
Well.....I have read a few fiction stories about paintings that changed.

Also, there is a painting called "The Crying Boy" that is rumored to cause fires in the homes of the people who have it. I have a picture in a book. I hope that doesn't count. :?
Click to expand...

I've come across stories of this painting a few times and it always sends a shiver up my spine, due to some strange happenings surrounding a similar picture that my parents had about 15 years ago (the dog went nuts at that picture too, as I remember)- and I seem to recall stories of this "haunted painting" in the papers at the time.

I don't want to threadjack, so I won't post my family's experiences here now, but will do in the future (I'd like to speak to my parents to get their recollections first, as I was only a kid at the time really)

EDIT: I realise that I'm replying to a post made a looong time ago here, so am not really expecting replies. I'll post my experiences as I can best remember them in a new topic, and then elaborate if possible after speaking to my folks.
 
H_James said:
Welcome to the board, Fuegodjo! There's a dedicated Crying Boy Painting thread - go knock yourself out...
Click to expand...

Cheers! :D
Will have a read, and post my story on there soon.


EDIT: I've now posted this on the crying boy thread linked above.
Cheers
 
My dog is bothered by any kind of change in the house, like when a chair is moved to a different place. Maybe it's the same sort of thing when something new is on the wall. Dogs see in black and white and probably can't make sense of a painting anyway, so all they know is that suddenly this strange object is there. It's interesting that when one of the dogs sniffed a painting it suddenly wasn't worried anymore. The dog probably recognized the smells as similar to things it knew weren't threatening.
 
I had a housemate (a painter) with a cat who had strange reactions to his paintings. I had never heard of any other animal reacting to a painting until this thread. The cat I knew used to like to be picked up occasionally and given a 'tour' of all the paintings on the walls. Once, one of the paintings needed its frame fixed, so my friend detached the canvas from the painting but left the frame sitting slightly askew in FRONT of the painting. The cat FREAKED out when he saw it. My friend and I tried carrying the cat towards the painting, but every time, the cat would violently leap backwards, howling.

I think it was the sudden change from a familiar painting to one that had mysteriously altered that freaked the cat out so much.
 
Are your pictures glazed (covered with glass, not dazed & confused)? The dog may be seeing reflected movements in the glazing. We have glass interior doors between the hall and other rooms in our house and our dogs sometimes get a fright and bark at reflections in them. But the haunted painting thing is much more interesting...
 
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