When the smoke alarm goes off at our house (as it often does), it is followed by “Dinner’s ready” being called out from the kitchen. I then fan a kitchen towel under the alarm to clear the invisible smoke that has drifted over from my grill or oven. This usually shuts it right off.
All the while my little dog Jackie is howling from the other room; she must have very sensitive ears. She also cries like this when my husband sings. I guess to her, both these sounds are the same noise.
I got to thinking about these events and worrying about what would happen if the alarm was for real and I wasn’t at home. I haven’t trained my girls what to do in case of an emergency. Instead of all the dogs staring at the crazy lady waving a towel above her head, it would be a good idea to teach them to run out the doggie door at the sound of an alarm. I think we will start implementing fire drills into our routine; try some Pavlovian conditioning.
Hey, dogs are really smart; so I’m confident I can teach them this new behavior. My mother-in-law’s dog KC even alerted her one day to a fire in another room. Mom had left a candle burning under a lamp shade and it caught fire. KC let her know there was a problem and mom was able to put the lampshade out without any further damage. (KC is the black dog.)
My mother-in-law is the one who inspired me to start caring for rescue dogs. She had a special bond and love for all her furry friends. Mom and KC
made me love dogs too.
(My mother-in-law pictured with her little Georgie.)
One very smart thing mom did was put a sticker on her front door to alert any emergency personnel to the fact that there were pets inside her home. On the sticker you write how many pets to look for and emergency numbers for you and your vet. This window sticker is available free of charge from the ASPCA website. As a bonus, it comes with a magnet to put on the fridge with the number of the animal poison control center. If you are a pet owner, please go order one now; I did. Mom would be so proud.
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