Cat's Behavior Changes Before Earthquake

For the record, I have a generally well-behaved, though spoiled rotten cat.

We have a daily routine and it works for us. About 6 a.m., give or take 15 minutes, she will come into the bedroom and ask me kindly to give her breakfast and open the basement door so she can go off exploring and entertain herself until the people wake up.

So, I routinely stumble out of bed, scoop up some cat food and open the basement. Then, I remind her that people are still sleeping and she should play quietly.

On an average day, she does this very well. Then, at 8 a.m. when I get up for the day (the joy of working for myself!), she will be sleeping on her stool in the bedroom. She follows me to the dining room for her daily brushing and then curls up in her bed in the living room as I get down to work. It's a routine and it works for the cat and for me. As I type this, she is curled up an arm's length away, happily cat napping the morning away.

Over the past two weeks though, I have learned there are things that upset this routine, most notably earthquakes and aftershocks.

There was much hullabaloo after the April 18 in Southern Illinois about people noticing their pets acting strangely before the quake. To be honest, before the first earthquake, a 5.2 on the intensity scale, I was sound asleep. If the cat was acting odd, I slept through it.

For the rest of the morning, she was acting quite strangely, but I figured that being awakened at 4:30 a.m. by a shaking house would make anyone a little edgy. During the largest of the aftershocks that day, she stood still in the middle of the living room floor, wide-eyed and fur on end. That aftershock was a 4.6 earthquake in its own right and scared me too.

This morning I had planned to sleep in until 9 a.m. My work for the day was planned and I knew I could grab that extra hour of sleep, but the cat had other ideas. At 6:25 a.m. when I gave her the normal bowl of"crunchies" and opened the basement for her, she seemed fine. She nosed her food to acknowledge its presence and headed down the stairs.