The mystery about my dog and the big dog has been solved.
Took a good crack of thunder to do it. A crack of thunder that shook my house. My old Springer Spaniel wouldn’t have liked the sound of it.
I’m not in the woods during this storm. Not that weather fazes me much.
I’ve gone hiking, bird watching, animal watching, river watching, all those things, in all kinds of weather. But not in thunderstorms.
In hundred and ten-degree heat I followed Gambel’s Quails through an Arizona desert.
When the temperature was below zero I saw a flock of Snow Buntings on a frozen field in Michigan.
I watched an Orchard Oriole during steady rain in a suburban Chicago forest.
Nothing was much cooler than seeing Wild Turkeys drift out of dense fog in Wisconsin.
Weather’s part of the natural scene. I like all kinds. Even took college courses in it. I bore people about cold fronts.
All that aside, I stay inside when there’s thunder outside.
Which reminds me of my dog, and her mysterious behavior.
Whenever she’d hear thunder, she’d crawl under a table, a bed, our legs. She even locked herself in a bathroom.
But this was a brave dog. Once she took off after a herd of deer. We don’t know what she’d have done if she caught up with them.
She’d bark at horses and make them jump.
She wasn’t faint hearted. We always wondered, in the years of her long life, why she was freaked out by only one thing: thunder.
Today, when that sound shook our house, rattled my bones, I got the answer.
The sound outside started with a growl, then exploded into a big, really big, atmospheric bark. We know what it was, of course.
But if you’re a dog, what does it sound like to you?
M. Read a whole bunch of the stories today. Great stuff!
I loved the story! I have my own theory about thunder sounds that is impossible to communicate to dogs, big or small. My wife too is afraid of the “big dog” in your story and for years I have been trying to get her to accept my theory so she can stop waking me up because she is afraid of the thunder. Now, here is my theory: since light travels way faster than sound and the damage is caused by electrical discharge, if you ever hear a thunder (no matter how loud) you should be happy that you just missed a lightning strike! Fact is that you will never hear a thunder sound if you indeed get struck by lightning assuming the lightening does its damage. So next time, please tell your dogs (or anyone you care about!) that the “big dog sound” is like an “all clear” signal!
That’s my 2 cents worth!!
Very cute story, and creative!