Thunder and fire alarms in the same night
You know how in the last entry I mentioned Keisha howling when the fire alarms went off? Well, shortly after I wrote about it, at about 3:50am have a guess what happened. That's right. The fire alarms started going off, and Keisha started howling!
I had a feeling it would happen, because it's been a little while since we had an alarm. It's always the same people who sets it off at really odd hours of the morning. Every time the alarms start I know there's a very good chance it is coming from the 30th floor of this building. When will people realize that when their smoke detector goes off when cooking something at 3am they should shut it off before the main alarms start going off? They should get fined each time. That would probably teach them!
I'm thinking about teaching Keisha to get her harness and leash and bring them to me when she hears the alarms. They happen pretty frequently, so there's plenty of opportunity to practice! I'm thinking if I teach her to go get her leash and harness when I ask her, I can ask her to get it when the alarm starts, and after awhile she will get it automatically.
I don't even worry about the alarms anymore. I know I probably should, because one of these days it could be a real fire but after so many false alarms you get out of the habit of worrying if the building is going to burn down. When I hear the alarms now, I just curse the people who set it off, and go about whatever I was doing, or calming Keisha down while I wait for the announcements saying that the fire dept. has been called, they are accessing the situation, and that it was a false alarm.
Awhile after the fire alarms stopped I was finishing some laundry and decided to try Sophie's raincoat on Keisha. I wanted to compare the size Sophie was when I got her to Keisha's size. It's still a bit big for Keisha, but she's almost as long as Sophie in her body. She's also only about an inch and a half shorter than Sophie right now. I also tried Sophie's winter coat on Keisha just for fun. I attached her to the leash on the patio door handle so she wouldn't dive into the laundry I had on the floor in the hallway and hunt for socks to eat!
Before you start thinking about how odd I am for dressing up my guide dog, I got her the rain coat because she has to work in all kinds of weather and takes a long time to dry. I'd rather put a raincoat on her than have a wet dog that gets everything she touches damp all day, and smells like, well a wet dog. I got her the coat for winter because it goes down past -30°C (-22°F) or colder in the winter, and I can't just leave her home and go out alone. She also has boots for the winter because the salt that is used on sidewalks and streets makes her paws crack and bleed and it becomes very painful.
With Keisha I will use the boots in the winter, just so she will be more comfortable when working outside, but because huskies are bred for cold weather she won't need a coat. She also doesn't smell like a typical wet dog when she is wet, which surprised me a bit. I read that huskies don't smell when wet, but didn't believe it until I found out for myself. It was a very pleasant surprise!
