Climate Control
A few years ago, it suddenly dawned on me that the arthritis affecting my various joints had become way more accurate at predicting weather trends than all the television weather people and the National Weather Service combined.
Not that I found that surprising: Virtually all the forecasters and weather services have established a lengthy track record for being just plain wrong, or exaggerating the severity of whatever weather is in the offing. A friend of mine makes it a habit to take an umbrella with him to work when the forecast is for sunny weather; more times than he’s cared to remember, he’s needed it. It’s something he says he learned the hard way after listening to and believing in the forecasts of the U.S. Navy’s weather folks during his 20 years as a fighter pilot.
But something I didn’t know was that our dogs can be as affected by weather changes as we humans.
I once watched a dog that I knew was a superb performer have what could only be called a perfectly dreadful trip in Utility obedience. By dreadful, I mean I don’t think the dog did any of the exercises correctly. When the disaster was finally over and his owner had put the dog in his crate, she happened to sit next to me to watch the rest of the class. After a rather long silence, she asked if I had seen her dog’s non-performance.
Yes, I’d seen it.
“Did you ever see anything so perfectly awful, and from a dog just a couple of points short of his OTCH?” she asked.
Well, yes, I had, but not often at the Utility level — and certainly not one as accomplished as her dog.
What she said next, however, startled me:
“I never seem to learn that when the barometer is dropping, I might just as well forfeit my entry fee because he’s going to put in a bad performance.”
What?
“Absolutely true,” she continued. “When the barometer drops and there’s a low-pressure system coming in, my dog gets totally distracted and worried. He always gives me a lousy performance when that particular weather change is occurring. I’ve seen it not just in obedience, but also in the show ring and in hunt tests. A low-pressure area means a low-quality performance.”
That got me thinking about how weather can affect dogs. I had one who couldn’t tolerate heat, and it was a family affair, as neither could his littermate brother. It’s what likely prevented both from becoming champion/Master Hunters. In my dog’s case, anything close to 85 degrees Fahrenheit meant his brains were totally scrambled. By scrambled, I mean that a dog who, when the temps were in the 70s or lower did Master work with ease in an area of the country known for its difficult tests, had difficulty with single marked retrieves — Junior Hunter-level tests. When it got hot and if the humidity was high, his performance was even worse. Knowing this, we did all four of his Senior tests in the early spring, when temperatures were moderate.
I also recall one time hunting in Saskatchewan when Duke, my show/hunt test/hunting dog at the time, wasn’t interested in getting out of bed on a cloudy morning. Thinking he might be ill or hurting from the previous day’s work, I checked his temperature and watched him move about during his usual morning duties. His temperature was normal, and his movement totally sound. Clearly something else was bothering him.
If I’d had any sense at all, I would have paid attention and gone back to bed. But I’ve always considered waterfowl hunters, myself included, to not be playing with a full deck. On the way to the marsh, mist began falling and freezing on the truck’s windshield, despite having the defroster cranked up to maximum heat. By the time we reached the marshes, the freezing mist had been joined by a brutally cold north wind, the only kind of north wind you’ll encounter in any of the Prairie provinces that time of the year. Soon after, the mist turned to sleet.
We had put out a few decoys, but only a few, because we were going to have to pick them up in what was promising to be even nastier weather conditions. It turned out we probably should have saved the energy needed to do even that because almost nothing was flying; the ducks and geese sensibly had apparently hunkered down in the reeds on the lee side of the marsh. An occasional bluebill or canvasback would whip past us, pushed along by the wind at speeds that, I swear, must have been approaching 100 mph, at least for the “cans.”
Finally, one of my hunting partners ventured a shot at a high-speed duck, and it appeared to go down in the reeds across the marsh.
When I lined Duke up on the spot where it was thought the bird had fallen and commanded “Dead bird, back,” I got the most incredulous look from the dog. If ever a dog’s expression said, “You can’t possibly be serious,” Duke’s did. But, being an obedient dog and also a dedicated hunter, he jumped into the water and started swimming toward the other shore, battling the wind and waves all the way. Once he reached the opposite shore, he hunted diligently in ever-expanding circles for a good 10 minutes, but found nothing.
Finally someone — probably me, since I was the one who had to stand atop the dike and face into the teeth of the storm to handle the dog — asked, “Did anyone actually see the bird fall?” When no one could say that they had, I called a halt to the search, hoping I could get him to give up the hunt, which was not usually an easy task. But this time, it was easy. One whistle, a shouted “Here” and he headed back across the marsh to me, apparently very grateful that the return trip was with the wind.
As he climbed out of the water, pulling his coat tighter around him as he huddled against the bank out of the wind, everything about him — his body language and his facial expression — said, “Snooker me again in this kind of weather and you’ll pay!”
Within minutes, little ice balls began forming on his coat, and when he began shivering, despite the dense, protective undercoat that Chesapeakes have, the ice balls rattled. It was enough to send me back to the truck for a bath towel and a waxed, quilted dog jacket so at least Duke was fairly comfortable. I, on the other hand, had to remove my wet gloves and wrap my hands around the handwarmers in my coat pockets for a few minutes to get them warm enough to melt the ice that had formed on my eyelashes. That mission accomplished, I thrust my hands back onto the handwarmers to dry and re-warm them before I put on dry gloves.
After another half-hour or so of exposure to the wrath of Mother Nature, I was shaking so hard that it must have registered at least a six on the Richter scale. More important, combined with other symptoms such as a lack of energy, it was convincing enough to suggest the onset of hypothermia.
Duke’s assessment was correct: We should have stayed in bed.
Is there any scientific basis for dogs’ ability to forecast weather changes? The answer is yes. They can detect sudden drops or spikes in the barometric pressure or in static electric fields. Any change in air pressure or electricity is a major indicator of bad weather. By comparison, humans can only detect extreme changes in air pressure, such as “airplane ear,” when ears pop during a plane’s rapid ascent or descent. When dogs feel these changes and know a storm is on the way, they instinctively seek shelter.
Their noses are also way more sensitive than ours, and multiple studies have shown that they can smell even tiny changes in atmospheric ozone caused by lightning. As a result, they can smell a storm coming long before we can. Lastly, their hearing is much better than ours — roughly 20 times more sensitive — so while we may not be able to hear thunder, the dogs definitely can.
My old Master Hunter Brittany, Sparky, who was absolutely the one in charge when we were hunting and never flinched — even when a 12-gauge shotgun was fired directly over her head at a bird — would come totally unglued at the first rumble of thunder that only she could hear. When she would start her panic attacks, I could safely predict to the family that we were about to get a thunderstorm, and Sparky’s predictions were never wrong.
My nephew, who lives not far off the San Andreas Fault in California, had a Miniature Poodle that accurately predicted earthquakes. When he detected the slightest rumble, which apparently only he could feel, he would begin trying to herd the family outdoors, away from danger. When Brutus started his “get outside now” act, my nephew’s family knew a quake was in the offing.
The lesson in all this is that when your dog warns you of deteriorating or soon-to-deteriorate weather conditions, pay attention, because weather, indeed, is a factor in both your and your dog’s performance. Follow Duke’s advice: Stay in bed. It certainly beats being cold, wet and miserable any day.