On Tuesday, July 7, 2010, we were vacationing at Lake Arrowhead. A little after 3:30 in the afternoon, Barbara left to do some errands. As she left, she said, “Why don’t you take Callie out for a walk in about an hour? She’ll probably want to go pee.”
So, dutifully, at about 4:40 in the afternoon, I pulled out Callie’s leash and took her down the front steps onto our street to go for a walk. But Callie went on strike. She sat down in the middle of the street and refused to move. She has done something like this a few times before, but this behavior usually means she has some sticks caught in her feathers. So I checked out Callie’s feathers and everything seemed to be OK. This went on for at least five minutes. I tried to be patient with her, but I just couldn’t get her to walk in either direction on our street. So, finally, I said, “C’mon, Callie, let’s just go back inside.” She was willing to trot up the stairs back into our house.
It struck me at the time that this was very strange and unusual behavior for Callie. She does mysterious things at times, but there’s almost always a reason. Here, there was none — at least, not one that I could figure out.
We walked back into the house at about 4:48 p.m. I decided to do some paperwork on our outside deck, so I gathered up some documents, opened the sliding glass door, and started to sit down on a chaise lounge on the deck. Callie followed me. Just then, at 4:53 p.m., in the living room, a metal stand full of glassware rattled as if someone had run straight into it. And I could feel the whole house swaying. Sometimes California earthquakes continue for thirty seconds or more, and you start to wonder, “When will it end?” This one was more of a one-time sideways jolt, but there was no question as to what caused the jolt.
Instantly, the radio stations and the Internet were alive with the news — a 5.9 earthquake (later revised down to 5.4) centered at Anza Borrego in Southern California.
There is no question in my mind that Callie was reacting to something that she sensed. Something that upset and disturbed her. Was it a rumbling noise that she heard? Was it a vibration that she felt? Was something electro-magnetic going on? I don’t know, but I’m convinced that she detected something and it affected her behavior.
There have been a number of anecdotal stories about dogs foretelling earthquakes, including one in China where a town’s dogs made such a disturbance in advance of an earthquake that the villagers went outside to see what was happening — in the process, saving thousands of people from being crushed under their homes.
Scientists don’t completely understand how dogs predict earthquakes — if they do. But there are some interesting theories, including one from a guest on the “My Doggie Says…” show, Stanley Coren. Take a look at the articles below:
“Can Dogs Really Predict Earthquakes?”
“Experts Claim Dogs and Cats Can Predict Earthquakes”
“Can Cats and Dogs Predict Earthquakes? A Possible Auditory Answer, by Stanley Coren.”
