pet sounds

There are a lot of noises I attribute to my pets. The rustling sound of someone nosily sifting through a bag, the soft thump of a pup throwing herself into bed, footsteps on the stairs at all hours, and tapping as she trots down the hall. I've noticed these sounds day in and day out with her present. And regardless of whether she is fast asleep in her bed or awake at my side, these noises don't bother me. You never realize though, how much noise there actually is until you drop the dog off for a haircut and all of a sudden... what was that? 

Mischa at Christmas, the moment she realized she was staying at my Aunt and Uncle's house while we went on vacation.

A couple of weeks ago I did just that, dropped Mischa off at the groomers for an hour and returned home in the meantime. It's important to know that I am wonderfully talented at scaring the crap out of myself. Really, I should list it as a special skill on my resumé, expert scary story teller, creative type with an active imagination. It's not a constant thing, occasionally I'll read or watch something that leaves me feeling spooky. Only once has something actually odd, in the spooky sense, happened to me that I wasn't able to explain, but what's even more odd is that I wasn't frightened by it. 

It was years ago. I was home from college for the summer. I put a piece of pizza in the toaster oven without a timer and forgot about it. After too long, Mischa began barking to alert me that it was finished. I ran back into the kitchen to find the toaster oven unplugged and the pizza perfectly cooked, not burned to a crisp as I was expecting. I was home alone and the dog couldn't reach that counter in her wildest dreams. Directly following that incident I couldn't find my allergy medicine. It wasn't in the cabinet and the kitchen counters were bare so I went upstairs to check in my bedroom. When I came back downstairs the little white bottle was sitting on the counter, alone in the center. 

Why I am on this topic? 

With the pup out on an adventure of her own I can really enjoy how much noise my home makes by itself. A few years back it had been a very windy winter and the innermost corner of my bedroom would make an awful squeaking sound only in the middle of the night. That was fun. Then there was the time a squirrel broke into the attic and would run back and forth at all hours. Little tapping feet scrambling across my ceiling. But those noises are different. I have gotten so accustomed to hearing certain things, the footsteps on the stairs and tapping in the hall, sighs, and rustling. Though she is a very vocal thing, I'm beginning to think that the dog doesn't make half as much noise as I thought.