ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

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  1. Sookie: I have things to say!
    You: M’am, this is a Wendy’s.

    Poor Sookie, she’s singing the song of the Horde (we’re her people).

  5. My cats do this sometime. They are not hungry. They do not want to go outside. They just want attention.

  7. Our older pup does that (complete with accompaniment). Sometimes playing low music helps cuz then our pup can’t make a guess at ‘I might have heard something’. Makes a drastic decrease in pup singing.

    Sookie is such a sweet heart! <3

  8. I watched this, and my dogs immediately started barking and running around looking for who was doing the barking and possibly invading our house. haha

  9. Willow doesn’t usually bark unless she hears Tussah barking. Tussah doesn’t usually bark at recordings. But once in a while Willow will think she heard Tussah in a recording and will bark along with her, and then Tussah figures if Willow is barking, clearly all Hell has broken loose and she must defend the perimeter, and then they’re both barking because the other one is barking. Stopping the cycle is quite the task.

    Recording: random bark
    Willow: I bark in solidarity with my sister!! Bark, bark bark!
    Tussah: I don’t know what Willow knows that I don’t, but I better sound the alarm anyway. ALL HANDS TO STATIONS! DEFEND THE FAMILY! FIGHT TO THE BITTER END!
    Willow: Oh no! Tussah has detected an intruder. Or possibly a squirrel. Bark! Bark!
    Tussah: Willow, give me some indication of the enemy’s position!
    Willow: barking literally at random.
    Me: Girls! There’s nothing there. I checked. Quiet now.
    Tussah: okay but I haven’t barked at ALL the windows yet. So I’m going to finish up first.
    Willow: I can quiet. I can quiet. BUT MOM NOW TUSSAH IS BARKING AT THE FRONT DOOR SOMEONE IS HERE PROBABLY MAYBE RIGHT?
    Tussah: WILLOW IS BARKING AGAIN! SOUND THE ALARM! ALL HANDS TO STATIONS!
    Willow: I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS INVADING BUT I AM READY TO DEFEND MY HOME AND FAMILY!

    Me: oh. dear. lord.

      • I lost it at “or possibly a squirrel”. Thank you, I needed that so much. The 12 yr old lab I adopted when an elderly friend passed away chooses to randomly bark at 3:00 am. Doesn’t seem to be looking at anything, just laying on the deck and barking. Not even nonstop, just a couple barks, pause, bark, pause, several barks….hmm, just occurred to me – maybe it is canine Morse code?

      • @Mod R – she likes to be thorough in her barking. A few last barks at each possible entry point for hypothetical intruders.

  10. One of my dogs will be sound asleep and start barking in her sleep. This of course wakes her up, because there is a dog barking. She then starts barking at the dog that woke her up. She isn’t the smartest dog out there…

  12. We have 2 older German Sheppards up the street that love barking at everything and nothing.
    After a year of living here we can set our clocks by them 715am 1230pm and 630pm when they come outside. At first my girl would hear them and start barking and get excited too, now her ears twitch in their direction and she goes back to doing whatever she was doing before.
    I just played Sookie and I got a head lift, ear twitch in my direction, ear twitch in Sheppards direction and she promptly laid back down.
    Sookie probably just wants her moms attention today.

  13. I needed a good laugh. Sookie is trying to get what she wants to say out all at once.

    I’m in solidarity with Sookie right now. I was thinking some very bad words earlier this morning with having to re-download reports that should have been validated. 🤦‍♀️😬

  16. I get that you are trying to make Sookie feel better so she stops barking, but – positive reinforcement:) She barks, you attend/pet. What’s not to love?

  17. long time lurker, first time posting. waves hi! I was poking around my local bookshop’s website and saw hidden legacy editions available for preorder (for April 2024). Is there somewhere I can find more details?

  20. Cat’s don’t need a reason. They just decide to yowl! I’ve got one that usually waits until about 10 minutes after I go to bed. I’m almost asleep…YOWL> YOWL>YOWL as she gallops down the hall toward the front of the house. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️Ghosts arriving?!

    I’m catching up on the blog after the week from hell at work. My daughter lives near Wilmington NC. When she was growing up we lived in the country of Trinidad (last island down on the Caribbean chain) on the beach. That is her idea of the correct beach water temp. Outer banks doesn’t hit tolerable until late August-early September, and then not for long. Her husband grew up there and he and her kids are water babies. In the water at the beach all the time. The whole family rented a beach house for several Thanksgivings while we were all in temporary housing and those crazy kids feet were blue but they were still in the water!

    • When our cat yowled at bedtime, we used to call it “the existential meow”…she would stomp up and down the hallway mourning her inexcusable lack of opposable thumbs 😂😂😂

  23. 🤣🤣🤣 okay, everyone, I’m loving all y’all’s dog bark stories! Makes me miss all of our muttlies that have passed over the Bridge. Thank you everyone for a wonderful laugh today.

  24. I have three senior dogs and one will bark for no reason (they’re in the living room, not looking out a window), then the others will pick it up. The oldest will keep going no matter what. She’s absolutely sure there’s something to bark at, but can’t be bothered to move to the window to check. And they never believe me when I say there’s nothing there. 🤷🏼‍♀️

  25. Aww, we had a senior dog that did this. She just faced the wall and barked poor thing. When they cannot see or hear well, it is hard for them. Sweet baby.

  26. I moved into my daughter’s room for the last two weeks to sleep with her dogs so they would not stress while she is at AETA (American Equestrian) Intl trade show in Dallas. I swear her mini Aussie spends the time saying “Becky’s gone” until she gets back. What we do to keep our pups happy. So one Aussie, one Boxer and one Great Pyrnees take up a lot of space. Oh and her cat sleeps on the bed too.

  27. She missed you. And will not let you off easily.

    Got a friend whose dog howls when she hears the ice cream truck. Goes to the front window, takes a deep breath and lets loose

    It’s hilarious. I die of laughter every time

    I turn to my friend “well?”

    “Well, what?”

    “Where’s Lou’s ice cream?”

    lol. lol. lol

  28. My brother has a ring doorbell and so of course the TV adverts trigger his dog – as do neighbours doors ringing when you walk by, phone notifications for it sounding off and basically everything since they are so common now!

  29. I don’t have multiples with me, but I brought the new rescue to work today and he may not be allowed back after today’s behavior. He has been fairly quiet and low key, so coming to my office has not been an issue. I’m learning that he is very food sensitive in that if anyone has food, he knows it and will shamelessly bark and whine to try to get himself some. Not happening, but it resulted in several rounds of “what do you want?” After barking and whining from him we realized what it was, but until the food was away he was not stopping. We don’t eat at the same time, so it resulted in multiple periods of this over a couple of hours. He does it at home too, but that I can ignore more easily as he isn’t bothering people trying to work. We’ll see, my office manager wasn’t here to be bothered today, so he may live to see another day at work. But I relate to this so much.

  30. May, Jesse’s mom howls, then she gets the others worked up and they all howl, many times a night.

  31. This is why my dogs watch golf. Seriously. It is people talking, drowning the random sounds outside and they don’t yell (unless, I found out, someone gets a hole in one.)
    Otherwise my dog barks at the door at the hospital opening, 2 blocks away. Or birds fluttering. And the medivac helicopter will keep her barking and whining for an hour.
    She barks at the mailman, who she loves. she barks at my son showering upstairs. she barks at birds at the bird feeder. She doesn’t bark at someone actually coming in the house, however.
    sigh…

  32. Well, I always think of a snappy comeback at least a day late. Maybe some other dog said something to her at the boarding place??

  33. You are so blessed… and so kind!
    I know many folks who got rid of their senior dogs… 🙁

    She still is so awesome, though! <3

  34. My 21 yr old cat would just yowl for no reason. I’d hold and pet her and it helped. Tough being old… ❤️

  35. I’m a cat mom.

    Cats can come in the I-never-meow-unless-there-is-an-emergency version, but also in the I-shall-observe-the-surroundings-and-if=anything-does-not-meet-with-my- approval-I-shall-stand-here-and-yowl version.

    Our cat Calvin lived to be 20 years old and we had had him since he was a baby who had just stopped nursing. For most of his life, he was the quietest little guy, but then he got really old and had some health problems and if he so much as squeaked my husband and I would race to him to make sure he was okay. He recovered, but the lesson he learned from that is that if he made noise he got immediate service. After that if his food or water or litter box didn’t look to suit him, he would stand and yowl.

    Sometimes he would do it if my husband and I were not both in the living room, both sitting on comfortable furniture and positioned with our laps situated suitable for a cat to lay on.

    Calvin was over his illness, but still old and a bit frail, so we kept racing to check on him if he made noise.

    We had THREE other cats at the time. Unfortunately, they learned that noise-brings-service lesson, too. Sigh.

    • My two cats would meow at me when I needed to change the cat litter, and/or fill up their water and food bowls when they were young.

      However, when my male cat got older, he would stand in front of my bedroom door and meow loudly until someone opened my bedroom door a little so he could get in. Once in he would jump on my bed and snuggle either on top of my afghan or get burrowed underneath it. Scared me one afternoon when I put my backpack from school down on my bed and got a very plaintive meow from under the blanket. 😀 Otherwise, both of my cats really ignored the noise.

  36. Funny how our pets decide we need to stop whatever and really pay attention to them!
    My cats run & growl to tell me someone/something is going on out front. They recently alerted me to the paramedics arriving next door (no siren). I was oblivious to the lights flashing. (And was able to watch their dog when they went off to the hospital)

  37. She wants some attention from you. She barks, everyone barks, you give Sookie attention to try to quiet her. She barks every time you stop talking to her.

  38. My dogs have gotten wise to the notifications from our Ring doorbell. Unfortunately, we also have cameras on other areas of the yard. If one goes off due to a tree waving in the wind, we get many barks to let us know!

    I also have 2 senior cats. One has developed cat dementia and can be found mournfully YOOOOOOWLING at the wall …. or the air. He does that until someone calls his name and snaps him out of it.

    It can be a bit noisy here.

  39. Yeah. Multiple dogs are a cascading effect. I have family visiting for several months who brought 3 dogs and 3 cats. Mind you I am VERY allergic to cats, so they stay in the front room of the house (unless someone ‘forgets’ to keep the door closed. Also, three small dogs (including mine) and one big dog create quite the chorus. All it takes is one tentative bark to begin the ‘seranade’.

  43. Awe what a sweetie! Ours too barks more than before and louder….as she is losing her hearing due to her old age. Good luck with your writing and have a great weekend! Thanks Mod R for all you do too!

    Cheers,
    M

  45. HAHA!! My dog was sitting in my office with me when i ran the video and started barking his head off. Obviously there is some serious “talking” going on here.

  47. I’m caught in some sort of an alternate reality: the only thing I see is a message that says “to continue, please type the characters below” but when I do that, it just displays new characters to type! I may be here all day typing characters in hopes that maybe one will unlock Sookie and the sad song of her people! 🤣

      • Thank youMod R! I love Sookie! 🥰💕💕

        And also, I made my phone take a looong nap, and now it loves me again and everything is working! This is payback you know: I used to smile a little bit judgementally at my IT customers before I retired, when things would randomly stop working and they’d tell me they didn’t do anything to cause the problem.😂

  49. lol. our pup used to do this too. drove us mad. i wish we could tap into their brains so they could tell us what’s going on.

  50. My Mother in Law’s dog used to only bark at “real things”. Codie was good at letting her know that a cat was sitting on her car, or a squirrel wanted into the attic, or someone was on the porch. He had different levels of noise for delivery and interlopers. He also stopped a soon as it was over.
    At three one morning Codie went off as if he were a air raid siren. He woke mother, and her neighbors. Mother assumed some cat was trying to sleep on her car. She decided that the only was anyone would get any more sleep was to get dressed and go chase the cat away.

    Codie wouldn’t let her out of the house. Mother was under 100 lbs. Codie, a Bassett Hound, St. Bernard cross outweighed her by more than 35 lbs. He had changed his focus from window to front door to side door several times, but was now intent that Mother not leave the house.

    The neighbors did what Mother wanted least. They called the police for a welfare check on the tiny fragile old lady whose dog never barked in the night. The arrival of the police chased off the housebreakers who wanted into her home.

    Codie got a very nice steak that day. Mother apologized to the neighbors for the fuss. The neighbors said that knew something had to be wrong when Codie demanded attention in the middle of the night. A few wanted to know if Codie could make them a puppy? He was obviously a very good dog.

    The moral of the story is that the dog could be trying to tell you something. I used to live in Texas. Are you certain Sookie isn’t alerting for something like an insect? Whether scorpion, carpenter ants, or termites?

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