Can Dogs Sense An Earthquake?

This morning at about 4:00 a.m., I woke up because I felt something strange, unusual, out of the ordinary for my household. I felt a shaking that wasn't normal. I sleep in bed with my human parents and when they get in and out of bed there is a bit of movement, but this was something more.

My Alarm System
I started barking to alert everyone. My dad woke up, as a result of my barking, but not because he felt the strange shaking when I did. My mom slept through the whole thing!

What I felt was a 3.8-magnitude earthquake. The epicenter of the quake was in Kane County, not far from here. The shaking was also felt in Indiana, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Now, was I, a canine of the world, able to sense the shaking of this quake before my human parents? Is there something about us dogs that make us more sensitive to the vibrations of an earthquake?

Strange Behavior Reported Long Ago
Reporting of unusual animal behavior before earthquakes dates back all the way to Greece in 373 BC. There were reports that snakes, weasels, rats, even centipedes, left their homes days before a destructive earthquake hit.

Why Dogs Can Sense A Quake
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the cause of unusual animal behavior seconds before we humans feel the shaking of a quake can be easily explained. In a quake, few humans notice the smaller P wave that travels the fastest from the earthquake epicenter and arrives before the larger S wave. But many animals with more keen senses are able to feel the P wave seconds before the S wave arrives. Whether or not animals can sense a coming quake days or weeks beforehand though is another story all together.

There was a popular notion that there might be a correlation between lost pet ads in the San Jose Mercury News and the dates of earthquakes in that area. But, a careful statistical analysis, which was published in California Geology in 1988, showed that there is no correlation.

More Studies Need to Be Done
So, can animals predict earthquakes? According to many people who have seen the strange behavior in their animals before a quake hits, they indeed can. If you asked my dad this morning, he would say that it is true. More studies need to be done to conclusively say whether it is fact. Most studies on this behavior are being done in Japan and China.

For more information on earthquakes, go to the U.S. Geological Survey at http://www.earthquake.usgs.gov/.