The dedication in my latest book is: "To Bella, Blondie and DC - my pets and special friends." The dogs Bella and Blondie, who we think are sisters, and the cat, DC, were rescued from the streets by my wife, Sandie. There are too many street dogs and cats in Turkey and Sandie with her truly caring concern for all creatures great and small, could, if space and finance allowed, take in all manner of waifs and strays. I have to admit I was reluctant to take on board our current family but four years later I have no regrets. They are truly special friends with their own different and very engaging personalities. I know there has been plenty of research to determine whether animals have personalities but from my experience, I have no doubt that they do have individual characters and behaviours, so what's that if it's not personality? Maybe it should be referred to as dogality or catality!
This blogpost is about Bella and specifically about her fear of thunderstorms. Bella is the most sensitive of our three adopted waifs. At a first encounter she looks tough and if put to the test by an unwanted intruder, she probably would be. But she can get very upset from certain occurrences, particularly inclement weather. In the area of Turkey where we live, we enjoy long hot summers, with very little rain, from May through to October. Most of the rain comes during the winter months and although I don't keep records, more often than not, rain comes with a thunderstorm. I would be guessing but I suggest 70% of all storms are thunderstorms. Sometimes they can be powerful and destructive and as an example, we are now on our third ADSL modem router in as many years! Two were damaged by overhead lightning strikes and the latest one survives purely because whenever there is the slightest chance of a thunderstorm, we disconnect the mains and telephone connections!
Although I am not a great fan of thunderstorms, I can't resist measuring the 'flash to bang' time in order to estimate the distance of the storm from my location. If you count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, then divide by five, it will be a good approximation for the number of miles. Divide by three if you prefer kilometres. If the storm is more than about 12 miles away, the thunder is unlikely to be heard but the lightning should still be visible. For very distant storms, the lightning will not be visible. Now although I'm sad enough to amuse myself with these calculations, I don't think Bella would have the same interest!
We first observed Bella's fear of thunderstorms shortly after she joined us as a young puppy at our previous property. We were out one day and she was in the garden with Blondie and DC. Whilst we were away there was a horrendous thunderstorm with fork lightning that was almost overhead. The pets could shelter on the balcony and sure enough after we rushed home, that's where we found Blondie and DC, but initially we couldn't find Bella. At our previous property, our solar water heating panel was mounted on the ground in the garden, which is not the most common location as roof-mounting is far more effective. We eventually found Bella cowering and shaking under the solar panel. That's when we first discovered her problem, which she hasn't grown out of. Blondie and DC, by contrast, do not like thunderstorms but don't show any signs of fear - different personalities!
In our current property, there is no way Bella could retreat to the solar panel, because it's on the roof! But she does have a retreat that we have named 'Bella's Shelter', which is a coffee table in the lounge. She hides under it during every thunderstorm. In fact, her built-in 'early warning system' prompts her to take shelter before the first sound of thunder. So how does she sense the storm well before the flashes and bangs? I have a theory.
When there is an electrical discharge in air, like lightning, it creates ozone, which is a strong-smelling toxic form of oxygen. Ozone is present and can be smelt on the London Underground, created by the sparks on the train tracks. It has long been known that dogs have very powerful smelling capabilities and my theory is that Bella can smell the ozone from the lightning well before it is visible to humans. It is only a theory and I haven't conducted any controlled experiments but I have observed Bella's raised head and twitching nose on some occasions and just prior to her scampering off to her shelter. Now there could be other smells associated with thunderstorms or maybe acoustic signals that dogs can detect before humans but, whatever, Bella's 'early warning system' has never let her down and hopefully I won't lose any more ADSL modem routers!
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