It's May Be One of Those Nights
If Walker Evans, our loving and protective pup/canine companion, has a fault, it is that he is deathly afraid of thunder (and sometimes lightning), and barks loudly and repeatedly at it when it blasts while running through the house, particularly downstairs, from front to back, apparently believing that he is protecting Val and I from something.
While the thunder has already passed us by for about 10 minutes, he is still barking and groaning at it, and I had to grab him by the collar as he ran by and pet/rub his shoulders and neck to calm him down a bit. Actually, he has been quiet for about 5-10 minutes, and we're hoping that the thunder has ended for the night and that Walker Evans can stay calm and not get into that overexcited, chest heaving panting that keeps us all awake.
I'm curious as to how many of you readers have this trouble with your dog or other pets.
While the thunder has already passed us by for about 10 minutes, he is still barking and groaning at it, and I had to grab him by the collar as he ran by and pet/rub his shoulders and neck to calm him down a bit. Actually, he has been quiet for about 5-10 minutes, and we're hoping that the thunder has ended for the night and that Walker Evans can stay calm and not get into that overexcited, chest heaving panting that keeps us all awake.
I'm curious as to how many of you readers have this trouble with your dog or other pets.
posted by Kevin J. Hosey at 11:25 PM
3 Comments:
My mom had that problem with Sparky. (Actually, since we were all living together for most of that time, we all had that problem.) Same thing: running-barking-growling. Perhaps even more annoying was his persistent habit of barking like mad at the garbage truck each time it came up our street. Even worse, my mom would humor his notion that he was protecting us and congratulate him on this behavior -- which, combined with the truck - surprise! - leaving each time, seemed to confirm his suspicions that we all narrowly escaped some garbage-truck-visited doom, thanks to him.
Now I don't have a dog, but our cat is just as bad. He reacts about the same way every time the air conditioner kicks on. Since it's slightly cooler at night (all the way down to 80 or 90!) that's the time it will kick on and off. So we have our sleep interrupted by regular intervals of Momo perched on our chests, loudly announcing impending disaster via our vents. Very loudly.
But but Walker is protecting you from the evil thunder of doom!
Our current dog does that. It's more fun when she starts in the middle of the night. The thunder doesn't wake the child, the dog barking does.
To this day Cassie will bark at people she knows... she barks when the mailman comes... when one of T's therapists comes over... Luckily she doesn't bark just to bark.
Then there was one dog we had (when we were still in Texas)... she would bark at wind going through trees, she would join along with coyote howlings, bark at rabbits, etc.
Opps and forgot to mention- when we still had Sam (Basset Hound)- he wouldn't bark at thunderstorms. He would burrow between us in the bed and shake in fear and cry.
This is the same dog that chased off coyotes...
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