Scaredy Dog

I believe I have written about Bizz's fear of fireworks before.  We discovered this on the 4th of July when we made the huge mistake of taking him for his evening walk and it seemed every street was setting off its own fireworks show.  Last night I discovered Bizz is also afraid of thunder. 

The weather yesterday was very odd.  A traditional August day, hazy, hot and humid, the evening continued to be quite warm.  Bizz and I headed out for our before bed walk at 9 p.m.  We got on a few steps when I realized I had water drops hitting me. I checked to see if the sprinkler system had gone amok but nope - it was raining.

For those of you not in California, it never rains in August.  Campbell and San Jose are typically dry from April - October.  This year has been no exception. The hills are truly golden in color because everything is dry as a bone and there are fire warnings everywhere.  So feeling drops of rain was surreal last night.  They were big drops but it wasn't pouring so we continued the walk.

What was most interesting was that dozens of my neighbors were outside in front of their homes looking up at the sky.  And to a person they all said - "it's raining", with voices filled with wonder and more than a little concern.  Of course they all admired Bizz immensely, but returned to watching the sky.  One man talked about how alien this all was, another about was it a sign of the apocalypse.

One woman, who's large dogs always bark at Bizz from their house, greeted me with the words, "Earthquake weather," and shook her head. I asked what she meant. She told me this kind of freakish weather is the same as during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.  Yikes.

 But we carried on with our walk until suddenly Bizz froze.  I turned and saw a young woman coming towards us on a skateboard.  But it wasn't her. Bizz turned around and started pulling me back towards the house. That's when I heard it, the very distant rumble of thunder.  A few moments later another lightning flash and more thunder.  We made it back to the house in record time, it's amazing how fast you go when Bizz is not stopping to pee on every tree, bush, flower and electrical pole.  We got inside and Bizz ran around the house checking all the rooms.  A few moments later the sky opened up and a torrential downpour began accompanied by thunder and lightning.  Bizz jumped up on my lap and snuggled close, shaking ever so slightly.  Poor little guy.

I really needed to thank him, if we'd kept going we would have been soaked, and been out without protection in a lightning storm.  So perhaps his fear is merely his way of making sure we both stay safe. 

We survived and today is a beautiful and much less humid day.  But everyone is still talking about our freaky weather.  I'm not worried, Bizz and I completed his full walk this morning to both our satisfaction.