Odin's new Superhero Talent

[LyonsFamily]

Over the past few months, Odin has discovered his ability to tell when dinner is done cooking and he's pretty proud of himself. He alerts us to both the George foreman grill, the stove, and the oven and he usually beats the timer by a minute or so. It was getting a little annoying, especially since his alerts sound like "MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM, there's FFFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDD" screamed right into my face while he stands on me, followed by herding us to the kitchen and tugging on our sleeves until we go to the kitchen and get the food out. I've been to busy to train it out of him and it's actually a little useful when I forget to set the timer.

My husband has always suffered from sleep walking for as long as I've known him. Mainly, he just goes into the kitchen and eats cereal or poptarts in his sleep, so we've managed by just putting them in the high cupboards (I'm 4 inches taller than him so I can reach and he can't without a chair). The other day I got woken up at 3am by Odin screaming at me and standing on me in bed. I followed him to the kitchen and heard awful cracking noses and smelled smoke. It seems that my husband started to sleep cook some soup and then walked back to bed, leaving it on the burner.

I'm so thankful that Odin has his weird talents and woke me up to tell me about the soup so that our apartment didn't burn down. Somehow I don't think he cared about the apartment and just wanted the soup, but at least he did something.

[Sugars Mom]

Wow, thats quite a talent...it came in very useful I might add! Glad to hear your house did not burn down or anything serious came of it. Yikes!!

[anniewang83]

WOW! A great talent to have! It's amazing how our dogs can sense much more than we can.

Good job for Odin on saving your apartment - I hope he got some burned soup.

[Dutchringgirl]

That is a fantastic talent!!! Even if it gets annoying, it came in handy to save the kitchen. I am sure he did care more about the soup, but, in the end it worked out great. Big doggy bone to odin.

[johninny]

first, it sounds like you better stop hiding the cereal and pop tarts.
and I agree - I think Odin did care about your safety if the soup was burning and the kitchen smoking up.
when I was a very young child, our family dog who had nothing on Odin saved our entire family in the nick of time from a huge and ferocious fire that is still legendary in the home town.
as for his timer talent, it sounds great to me. I get completely confused in the kitchen and would never know what to set a timer to --- so Odin could solve all my culinary problems!

[LyonsFamily]

first, it sounds like you better stop hiding the cereal and pop tarts.
and I agree - I think Odin did care about your safety if the soup was burning and the kitchen smoking up.
when I was a very young child, our family dog who had nothing on Odin saved our entire family in the nick of time from a huge and ferocious fire that is still legendary in the home town.
as for his timer talent, it sounds great to me. I get completely confused in the kitchen and would never know what to set a timer to --- so Odin could solve all my culinary problems!

Oh maybe I should rent him out to the culinary challened . If only I could get consistently with multiple dogs, I could add that on to my training packages and get a contract with bed, bath, and beyond!

Your childhood dog sounds awesome! I hope we never have to face something so serious to test Odin with that though. What kind of dog was it?

[johninny]

she was a cocker spaniel. she was in the family before me. one of her male pups [ a wonderful mutt ] from 1955 joined as a 2nd dog until she died and he was with the family for 17 years. she did save us; nobody would have made it if she had not alerted my mother to the issue when she did.
she was a character: at a beach house every summer, she would routinely go out a 2nd floor window of a turn-of-the-century house where she could maneuver onto the roof shingles -- then climb up the steep roof and perch high up where several roof lines met and made a nice nesting spot where she could observe the comings and goings of people entering and leaving the beach and could commune better with the seagulls. invariably several times each summer, an unknowing passerby would get upset for her and call the fire department to come save her. she would watch the commotion for a while and when it got too much and too close to rescuing her, she would calmly walk down the roof and disappear through the window. her timing was always so perfect. she seemed to prefer to watch over me and guard me from her roof post than to be on the sandy beach. if something concerned her, she could quickly make her way through the house down to the beach.
I WOULD DEFINITELY SIGN UP TO RENT ODIN'S CULINARY INSTINCTS - DEFINITELY QUALIFY AS CHALLENGED HERE!
btw, taking inspiration and knowledge from you, I did get some great wild-fish oil. thank you.

[johninny]

I do think without doubt that Odin would pass such a serious test with flying colors but hopefully there will never be proof of that.

[leih merigian]

Stephanie, that's an amazing story! Way to go Odin!

They are just too funny for words sometimes, eh? The things they decide are their responsibility...

My landlords have a new rooster with their 25 chickens. This rooster likes to...act all manly with the chickens . Constantly (I just call him Horney Toad). Anyway, Geyser has decided it's one of her many jobs to stop him when he's engaged with one of the chicken ladies. Doesn't help that the landlady eggs her on in this...

[johninny]

my old Tracedog also thought it was his duty to stop any 2 beings from having sex. at a certain time of the year here at the beach, when the big, ancient-like horseshoe crabs would be in mating season, he would patrol the beach and, even in the pitch black of night by the open water, he would suddenly rush into the water - sometimes 20 feet in - to find 2 crabs copulating under water and start pouncing on them and pushing them around with his paws. he seemed to be flawless in his ability to detect crab sex no matter how obscured by any amount of water or by lack of light. this even worked running full-speed along the water line. and no false alarms. a sudden stop and lunge into the water ALWAYS resulted in the finding of illegal crab sex.

[LyonsFamily]

Too bad Tracedog wasn't still alive. I'd trade you Odin's services for his. I have a friend that can't sleep because of the feral cats mating outside her window. She's tried everything to get rid of them.

I'm not sure who told these guys to start assigning themselves tasks though. Some days, it's like living with my parents again. I never thought my 2 year old dog would be the responsible one in the family. I can't stay up late or leave late to pickup my husband from the train station anymore.

[feraloup]

Yayyyy, Odin! Good boy! I recall a similar experience when I was about 8, our GSD, Heidi, who was about a year and a half at the time alerted my mom that the oven had caught fire.

I love your observation about their self-assigned duties! Moko hasn't discovered his calling yet, but Maiyou is the "Nanny" any baby animal, regardless of species, instantly becomes her charge to be dutifully snuggled, followed after, watched over, and tended to. My old GSD, Cory, was the self-appointed seeing eye dog for my blind rottie-pitt, Cedar, and Cedar was the bedtime police while I was preggers with my son. If I stayed up too late, he would come up to my feet, do a wide-legged play-bow and give a sharp bark... then walk toward the bedroom and cast over his shoulder to check if I was following. If I continued to read or do whatever instead of going to bed, he would repeat the act, getting more demonstrative and loud about it until I finally dutifully retired to bed.

[Sugars Mom]

OMG John, hilarious story about your dog stopping the crab sex!! What the heck!!

[leih merigian]

I never thought my 2 year old dog would be the responsible one in the family. I can't stay up late or leave late to pickup my husband from the train station anymore.

don't I know it