Dog Alerts Family to SpaceX Debris Before They Saw or Heard

It's always fascinated me how animals seem to have such keen senses that we humans don't possess. Their intuitions and reactions to impending occurrences whether they be natural disasters or something that just doesn't smell right or sound right - even though we may not notice those sights and sounds.

How often we hear of animals in the wild reacting to a brewing volcanic activity, or earthquake, or tsunami. While we're all 'what's wrong Lassie? Is Timmy in the well again?' Tater, my sensitive and lumbering 100-pound Golden Retriever demonstrated his natural abilities last evening as we were sitting under the stars enjoy a nice evening. Until......

I noticed Tater's head snap around and I observed his unusually serious gaze into the heavens. At first, I thought perhaps we were being divebombed by a bat or something. Then in my peripheral vision, I noticed a light in the sky and figured he'd just now discovered an airplane in the night sky and it must have startled him. I assured him everything was fine but he didn't seem to buy it. What seemed like a minute or so later, I begin hearing what I assumed was rolling thunder and I wondered if I'd start to get pelted with a sudden rainstorm. That didn't make sense without any rainclouds in the sky.

Right about this time I happened to check Facebook on my iPhone and noticed a friend had posted some video and comments about what had just gone overhead where he lives in Western Washington. What he described sounded a lot like what I'd heard and though I didn't look up as carefully at what was bothering Tater as I now wished I had, it all began to make sense. Of course, we now know that what we saw and heard was the SpaceX Flacon 9 Rocket debris returning from orbit.

I've heard from several friends and listeners today who said their pets reacted very similarly to Tater and that some were quite startled. Almost to a person, their pet alerted them to the fact that something was going on before they noticed it themselves. A little raw animal instinct has its benefits.