Who needs radar?
VIEWPOINT
By RALPH HARDIN
Evening Times Editor
My dog hates storms.
Wait, let me clarify. I don’thave a dog. My wife’s dog hates storms. The minute the thunder rolls, he’s looking for a place to hide. You hear the rumble of the thunder and just like clockwork, you hear the scurried click-clack of his nails working their way across the wood floor in search of a lap to seek shelter in or a chair to hide under or a closet to bury himself in.
Actually, that’s selling it a little short. If the dog suddenly starts following me around or staring at me expectantly with this weird smiling/panting thing he does, I don’t even need to look out the window. I know there’s a storm a-brewin’.
I guess it’s kind of a sign that dogs are sometimes smarter than people, because my first inclination when bad weather arrives is to go outside and stand on the porch watching the lightning
See VIEWPOINT, page A5 VIEWPOINT
From page A8
and listening to the wind whip through the trees.
They say animals can sense danger, whether it’s a storm or a predator or even an earthquake. I know if anyone comes down our street, the dog is going to let us know.
It’s a dead-end street and we’re the last house, so if you’re rolling up to our yard, you’d better belong, lest you face 12 pounds of furry fury.
I actually feel bad for the mailman, the Amazon guy, the pizza delivery driver and the Entergy meter man, because they do belong, but he gives them what-for every time. He did once alert us to someone going through our vehicles at 1 a.m. back at the old house, so while he does drive be bananas, I will begrudgingly give him credit for that.
There has been a crew working the past week or so on the empty house across the street. I know exactly when they arrive each day because he goes to barking immediately. I hope that when someone inevitably moved into the house, he might get used to them, but I don’t know what goes on in his little brain.
The U.S. Postal Service actually has a little alert system that notifies their carriers when they arrive at a residence with a “vicious dog” living there. Ask me how I know this… yes, my wife’s dog is officially on a federal watch list, like a terrorist.
But he’s still scared of storms, and for whatever reason he’s under the impression that it’s my job to protect him, which I guess is reinforced every time there’s a storm and he doesn’t die. There are storms in the forecast this week, so I guess we’ll be spending a lot of time together… sigh.
He also howls along with the tornado sirens every week when they test them. I don’t know what’s up with that…