While many Americans choose to keep dogs as pets due to their loyalty and mostly-loving nature, there are some often-overlooked benefits to having a furry friends around the house.
One such trait is their hyper-awareness, which appears that way to us due to dogs’ powerful, non-human senses. They smell better than we do. They hear better than we do. They even have some abilities that we can hardly fathom.
And so, when Fido gets to acting strange, we take notice. Such was the for folks in several locales on Sunday night, when simultaneously strange behavior was reported by dog owners who didn’t even know one another.
Science thinks that they now know why.
Did your dog or cat wake suddenly between 11:30 p.m. and midnight Sunday? There may be an explanation.
FOX 17 Code Red Meteorologist Greg Bobos says a solar flare that cause a coronal mass ejection impacted the planet.
Since dogs (and some cats) are sensitive to Earth’s magnetic field, this could explain the baffling behavior many pet owners observed Sunday.
The behavior varied, but the timing did not.
FOX 17 News viewers across Middle Tennessee have sent us reports of their dogs waking suddenly. Melissa in Portland, Tennessee says it sounded like someone “knocked on the door three times lightly.”
“Around 11ish sound like someone knocked one the door three times lightly heard it two times,” Melissa said. “Dogs went nuts.”
Donia, in Hendersonville, says her dog also woke up around 11:30 p.m. to midnight.
“Our dog woke up between 1130 and 12 last night growling and then peed on our comforter,” Donia tells FOX 17 News. “He never pees in the house much less in the bed. Weird!”
Solar flares don’t only affect our furry friends however, with larger events often impacting GPS and satellite communications, and providing norther latitudes with spectacular nighttime auroras. 
