Just a little earthquake

Last night, around midnight, I should probably have been asleep. Instead I was playing with my dog. We were hanging out in my bedroom. I left to go get something, leaving the door open just wide enough for him to fit through.

(This is my dog. Isn't he cute? <3)
Well, apparently he tried to get out, and somehow accidentally closed the door. I could hear him scratching to get out. I called to him that I'd be there in a minute. Usually, if he hears that, he'll calm down because he knows you've heard him and you'll be coming back. But instead he just scratched harder, over and over again. He was desperate to get out of that room! I finally made it back to let him out, and he headed upstairs.

I didn't think anything of that until I heard him barking hysterically in our front room. Right away my mind turned to my parents and siblings, all of whom were trying to sleep upstairs. Usually Max (my dog) knows better than to bark at night and wake people up. I was a little bit upset with him for being so loud. I should have paid more attention, I guess. He was doing his "trouble" bark, like something was wrong.

I went to find him and ran into my mom, coming to do the same thing. She was concerned because she recognized his worried bark and wondered if something was wrong. But he calmed down pretty quick. He noticed my mom left her door open and tried to hide in her bedroom, but we managed to coax him back downstairs.

My mom and I were standing in the kitchen talking when we heard a strange rattling noise. It sounded exactly like the sound Max makes when he shakes his head and his ears slam together. But I was looking right at him when we heard it and he wasn't moving. This took us back a little. We wondered if maybe there was another animal outside and that's why Max had freaked out? Then we heard a strange creaking noise behind us-much like the noise made when someone walks through our family room. But we could see in the family room and no one was there. This was starting to get a little bit creepy. We heard another burst of creaking that seemed to extend farther through the house, but when it faded it was replaced with the sound of footsteps upstairs. We relaxed and I figured we'd just been hearing someone moving around upstairs. We both went off to bed.

My dad came down a couple minutes later to explain why Max had freaked out: we'd just gone through a mini earthquake. My dad had been in bed, listening to my mom and my conversation downstairs, when all of a sudden the bed started shaking. It didn't shake very hard, and he says it lasted about half a second, but he felt it when we were hearing the strange creaks in our house. My dad figured the quake was so minor it wouldn't even register on the Richter scale, but he did a google search anyways to see what he could turn up. Sure enough, around the time he felt the tremor, a 5.5 earthquake happened a couple hundred miles from here. He thinks that we felt the very edge of that. He also thinks Max freaked out to warn us because he could sense it coming, with that awesome sixth sense that animals seem to have.

Anyway, that's my little earthquake story! Glad it was only a little one. I'm an even bigger fan of dogs today now that I know they really can warn us of danger.