Howie, Before Dawn

As soon as the smoke alarm bleated, Howie leaped off my bed and went to find the source of the annoying sound.

He'd have made a great companion dog for someone with impaired hearing. He sounds an alert for people at the door, for cats fighting in our yard, for our housecat's indiscretions of climbing on tables or trying to go into my studio or bedroom. Howie lets me know if the phone is ringing, or if the washing machine load is unbalanced, or the stove timer goes off.

The smoke alarm had him stumped, though. Maybe a spider crawled through the sensor, or some dust triggered the sound, we don't know. It stopped after a couple seconds, and we knew there was no fire in the house. After racing through the house and not finding the source of the noise, Howie came barreling back to the bedroom, jumped up on the bed, and threw himself into my lap for a cuddling and reassurance. Well, if I had been sitting up, it would have been my lap. Instead it was my chest and belly that 65 pounds (30 kg) of insecure dog landed on. I was flattered (and dang near flattened) by his confidence in me. In his fearfulness, he could have just slunk off and hid under a table. To him, that loud and mysterious sound was like hearing a ghost in the house.

BTW, I like the idea of smoke detectors -- but I would strongly advise getting the ones that are just battery operated than the ones that are wired into the house. Ours are wired in, and half of them we had to unplug because they go off erratically, always in the middle of the night. Damn, maybe it is ghosts, after all.