Myth debunked: Our pets can predict quakes

Earthquakes shake up a lot of things but some myths still surround this natural phenomenon.

Accounts of animals acting weird before earthquakes date back to ancient times.

Today, some people describe their dogs barking or their cats taking shelter in the hours leading to a tremor.

Pets are actually able to sense the first wave of an earthquake, called a P or compressional wave, which rolls through just before the movement occurs.

But this ability would only kick in in the seconds before an earthquake.

There’s no scientific evidence for pets having a built-in early warning system for earthquakes.

In one study, scientists tested this hypothesis by looking at shelter records to see if pets were more likely to run away before an earthquake.

But that didn’t hold up, and there were actually more pet escapes after earthquakes than before.

It’s probably another case of us searching for order – a way to make sense of a shocking event.

We might not normally notice or care if our dogs are acting antsy, but this observation takes on a new significance after an earthquake.

Maybe Fluffy ate something she shouldn’t have and we seem wired to identify all sorts of things that we think are significant that, in reality, aren’t.