Our Earthquake Alarm Went Off Last Night...

We may think we're the masters of our dogs, but our dogs are masters of senses...and, therefore, masters of us. You name it: smell, hearing, observation and behavior. All of these senses have never failed Mitch when food is near. He certainly smells when food is near, most humans even do (except Pete). But with his hearing in the ultrasound range, Mitch can even hear when a small morsel hits the floor and he comes running from the other room. In fact, he's really come to appreciate Sydney's eating behaviors:

• that there will always be food dropped during the course of the meal, which is fair game;


• any food left on Sydney's plate he will eventually receive; and


• if he merely stands close enough, Sydney will feed him directly from her highchair, thus expediting his meal.

(This explains why Sydney only just surpassed the 20-pound mark yesterday--at 21 1/2 months and with clothes and shoes on.)

My point? Mitch really has us all figured out (trained) thanks to these sensibilities. Well, I always thought Mitch's great "sense of sensing" was a liability, but last night I realized it is indeed an asset.

At a little after 4AM, Brian and I were sound asleep when Mitch jumped up onto our bed between us and began pawing at us. He was restless and nervous. Uh oh, that usually means something Sydney fed him didn't agree with him. Ever the dutiful dog owner and husband, Brian arose to let him out. After a few minutes, he called Mitch to come inside, but Mitch refused to come in. He was laying on the doormat in front of the door. So, Brian returned to bed to catch a few more zzzz's before waking in another hour or two. When I asked him what was wrong with Mitch, he said, "Something is up. He's acting weird."

He was right. Sure enough less than 10 minutes later, before we could both fall back to sleep, the house started shaking ever so slightly for about 10 seconds. An earthquake. Turns out there was an earthquake (4 on the seismic scale) just off of Chiba prefecture, which includes Tokyo (see map) and is just north of Yokosuka.

Thus, we have added "earthquake alarm" to Mitch's list of senses. That may come in handy in Japan. Now if we could just tell the difference between earthquake and bathroom emergency, we'd be set. Either way, I guess Mitch figures he'll evacuate...

Click here for a National Geographic article about animals sensing earthquakes.