Togo Goes Weather Forecasting
Daddy told me I would be a good storm chaser. However, I make it a rule not to chase storms or cars. Storms seem to find me with little effort on my part.
I live in West Texas. We have a lot of hot weather. But if we get the slightest bit of moisture in the air, then we get thunderstorms — complete with thunder, lightning, rain, and sometimes hail.
And, by way of full disclosure, I don’t like thunderstorms at all. Lightning flashes are hairy scary and thunder-boomers make my heart pound. And while I’m not afraid of getting wet, I do associate rainfall with thunderstorms. And don’t even get me started on fireworks and gun shots that sound a lot like lightning strikes.
We don’t have a lot of gun shots here. However, when I hear a loud crack and I’m running for the back door to give my secret tap to gain entry, I am not picky about what is causing my panic.
Even though I don’t chase storms, I know long before a thunderstorm heads my way. One minute, I may be stretched out and comfortable in the grass. And in the very next, I may be sounding the alarm.
Not surprisingly, I hear the thunder boomers long before Daddy does. Don’t tell anyone, but Daddy is hard of hearing. In fact, he wears little bug-like things in his ears that tell him what other people are saying . . . sometimes. If he doesn’t wear them, I sometimes have to nudge or paw him extensively to get him to pay attention. Momma says she has to do that, too, and it’s not just when there are thunderstorms in the area. (Daddy just grins. I asked him about the grinning. Evidently, there is a fair amount of joy generated when you don’t fully grasp everything going on around you. I’ve noticed that he grins a lot even when he has those things in his ears.)
My point in all of this is that I am a pretty reliable source of weather information. You might want to pay close attention to your canine friend.
Did you know that about 40% of all dogs have an aversion to thunder and gun shots? Did you also know that may not be the only reason your four-footed friend acts fearful when the lightning starts striking?
Yes, many dogs have noise aversion anxiety. Thunderstorms are big and scary. They are bigger than trees and trucks and buildings and they can move at alarming speed. And the sounds they make — thunder, wind rushing through trees and around corners, rain falling, and hail crashing into things — are all valid reasons to have some fear or even panic. So that’s definitely a factor.
But did you know that one of the biggest factors triggering dog storm anxiety is static electricity? Of course, big time static electricity discharges are what we call lightning.1 What humans don’t realize is that dogs — particularly dogs with a double-coat like me — can feel the static electricity start to build in their fur before a storm is close by. Daddy told me that people who have been struck by lightning2 often report feeling static electricity in the hair on their head and arms just before it hits. Dogs can feel it, too, but not just before it strikes close to us. We can feel it long before that. And that feeling makes us want to head for cover.
Static electricity is also one of the reasons that the so-called “thunder jackets” help many dogs deal with thunderstorms. Yes, there is something soothing about wearing something that feels like a hug. But the jacket also cuts down on the surface area of our fur available for static sensing. Win-win.
That’s enough science stuff. My main point here is that I am an awesome storm predictor. I talked to the people at The Weather Channel (TM) about getting a job with them. I think they were ready to send me a blue jacket with their logo. But then I found out that I would have to stand out in the middle of a storm to say, “It’s getting pretty bad out here and we want to encourage people not to come out and stand in the middle of a storm.” Apparently, weather people don’t see the irony in telling people not to do a dumb thing while they are doing that exact dumb thing.
So I’ll never be on television with my weather predictions. But, feel free to call me and ask about the weather. Or just check your weather app. I’m more accurate but I understand if you’re going for convenience. And I rarely answer my phone during thunderstorms. Static electricity, you know.
By the way, one of my pet peeves is people who write “lightening” instead of “lightning.” Don’t do it. Be smart like me and use the right words.
See previous footnote.
Storm Watch with Togo :)