Animals Know

My son calls me this morning and asks if my dog
went nuts last night/early a.m., and I'm thinking
How does he know that Molly was not well last night?

All I know is I woke at 4:40-4:45 at the sound of my
bedroom door shaking as if someone had the knob
and they were just pulling on it constantly. I was
frightened and wondered why Molly refused to move.

She didn't even bark--she just stayed curled up in a ball
on the bed next to me. My husband is out of town, so that
made things even worse. So, I got up and walked into the
living room through my bedroom door that goes into
the hallway (we have an odd door that opens from our
bedroom to the living room--I'm sure it was meant for heat
circulation purposes when the house was built, but it
serves no purpose now--we're going to turn it into bookshelves
one of these years!--it was the door that was shaking)
and I went to the living room not knowing what to expect.

My cat was running around looking terrified, but other
than that, there was nothing else going on in the room--
no train going by, not the cat jumping on the door,
no explosions, so I grasped the handle and pulled it
tightly and then it stopped shaking. I went back to bed
only to find that Molly had wet the bed and would
not move from her curled-up position, so she knew.
But next time she knows we're having an earthquake,
I hope she finds another way to let me know besides
wetting the bed and refusing to move!
A 5.2, which isn't much, but it was eerie. We're on the New
Madrid fault line and could have a large quake at any time.
I live roughly 160 miles from New Madrid, MO.

Popular history (around these parts) is that Reelfoot
Lake was formed in the 1800s as a result of a large
quake, which caused the Mississippi River to flow
backwards and fill major portions of that area. Don't
know how correct that history is, but I've certainly
heard it many times. The possibility of
an 8.0 is fairly high around here, but it's just something
we don't think about. We have tornadoes to worry about!

So, I finally moved Molly's butt off the bed, changed the sheets,
cleaned the wet area, dried it as best I could and turned a fan
on to help dry it out more. I haven't been back to sleep
since, and I am pooped! After I got the bed changed,
I moved over to the other side (the dry side) with just
a blanket and tried to go back to sleep, but I was freaked
out thinking maybe I had a ghost in the house. I would
have never thought earthquake!