By blowing my mind, that’s how! When the wind started picking up I took him out for what I thought would be the last walk of the night. He trotted around the yard going through his usual routine. But then he did something I’ve never seen him do. He sat down. Not just anywhere, either. He sat down on the north side of the yard facing directly into the hurricane winds and put his nose up into the air. He had no intentions of moving from that spot. Of course, that meant that I was also standing on the unprotected north side of our property being pelted by 40mph wind and rain.
After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only 5 minutes, I was able to coax the dog inside. All night long, as the wind howled and shook the house, he was begging to go out. Every time I took him out he did the same thing – sat down facing north into the wind with his nose in the air. This dog is afraid of every single thing, but not hurricanes.
I was lucky enough to have a brief conversation with the manager at the shelter where Storm lived for the 3 months before coming to live with us and she knew immediately what was going on. She said that Storm and the other dogs had been rescued from such a bad place in terms of the air quality, that it was no wonder that he loved the fresh air and wind.
So that is how we spend Hurricane Sandy at our house – standing out in the wind with a very happy dog!