Trusting Animal Instincts

I’ve been sick for about a week, so I haven’t been playing with my Sheltie, Sean, and my tabby cat, Meg, much at all the past few days. They both have been pulling out all the tricks to try to get me to play. Meg is stalking me behind any kind of chair, blanket, or box. And Sean keeps bringing me his tennis ball.

So, after I got up from a short nap this evening, I decided to take Sean out for a bit of frisbee. We headed to the tennis court next to my apartment building. It was really quiet, hot, and humid, but with a slight, cooler breeze.

There was lightning fliashing, but I couldn’t hear thunder, so at first I wasn’t worried about that, and didn’t think Sean would be too bothered by just lightning. Now, usually, Sean is so excited whenever we go out to the tennis court, as he knows we’re going to play and he can be off his leash and run around. But he was pretty quiet as we got out to the courts. I threw the frisbee for him, and although he went out to get the frisbee fine, each time as he came back with it, he headed to the door of the courts, instead of bringing it to me as he knows to do. And he wasn’t acting happy. He was very nervous.

So, I finally trusted his animal instincts and took him inside. I still didn’t know anything weather-wise to be worried about, so I headed to Target to get some medicine for my cold. Once I was in the store, I find out that we’re under a tornado watch, and some nearby areas have been hit by a tornado! Right now, I’m (I hope) safely home watching the news, and they just showed the intersection downtown where the Threads team works, where conditions are still favorable to have hail, high winds, heavy rain, and possible funnel clouds.

My heart is with the students and faculty at Union University. Our team will be praying for you all as clean up efforts begin.

Note to self: Sean is much better able to sense weather problems than I am. I’m pretty clueless unless I am hearing a weather update. So, if you take your dog out when thunderstorms are around, take note if he doesn’t want to go!