Tuppence and the smoke alarm

[Granca]

For the last couple of days Tuppy has been really clingy and demanding when I’ve been having breakfast. She wouldn’t settle (or, perhaps more often, play with Wispa) but kept pawing me and trying to climb on my lap. Then when I was taking my grandson to work yesterday my DiL texted to tell me she’d jumped the kitchen gate and had fled upstairs and was on her bed. I went home and walked her before having to go out again but, having behaved normally on the walk and when the dog walker took her out later, she managed to open my bedroom door and spent the rest of the day on my bed.

Last night Wispa barked at about 5am, so I let her out in the garden but Tuppy immediately rushed to the door, opened it and fled into the garden. I eventually found her under the silver birch tree near the house, but had to wake my grandson to carry her back into the house. She was still terrified in the kitchen, so she came upstairs with me, while Wispa settled happily in her crate downstairs. My grandson had mentioned that Tuppy was behaving as she does when the battery in the door sensor beeps when it needs changing, but the sensor batteries were fine. However, when I went down to the kitchen I heard two faint beeps, but couldn’t locate the source at all. Then when I went back to bed I remembered the smoke alarm in the lean-to next to the kitchen...

I’m hoping Tuppy doesn’t plan to sleep upstairs again tonight!

 

[pup-pup]

Jubilee also worries about smoke alarms. She jumps in my lap if one goes off and she hates the beeps. She gets weird when Rick takes one down to change the batteries, so I usually take her for a walk. It’s funny because she has always been a brave and confident dog - only smoke alarms and the dryer in wrinkle free mode (it switches on and off) bother her. Hopefully, Tuppy will be able to relax now.

 

[kateincornwall]

If only they could tell us , poor Tuppy , hoping she sleeps better tonight xx

 

[Ashley]

Same thing with Quinn - she will try and sleep outside if the smoke detector goes off! Any alarm really scares her. Last week she ran outside and couldn’t even eat a treat while out there after it went off. She has run down the street before if the gate is open and it takes ages to get her back in the house. I used to take her to get oil changes and sit in the car and couldn’t figure out why she was so anxious when normally she likes being in the car and getting attention, then I noticed a very faint beep! No more oil changes for her!

 

[Jacqui-S]

Poor dogs x
Sensitive souls.

 

[edzbird]

Belle used to get terribly upset at the beeping when the battery goes flat. It always seemed to happen in the middle of the night, and she'd get up & pace & whine but because we'd been asleep we didn't realise. It took a while to work it out, poor love.

 

[Granca]

It’s a shame they can’t understand immediately when the batteries have been taken out or changed. It took Tuppy a while to calm down, but she’s fine now and is even back sleeping on a chair in the room. She was still wary for some time after we’d taken the battery out and later put in the new one. She’s a sensitive soul, but ‘reactive’ Wispa isn’t bothered at all! If only she could tell Tuppy not to worry.

 

[Joy]

Ah, poor Tuppy. Glad she's back to normal now.

 

[Shaz82]

Poor Tuppence, Maisy has not heard a smoke alarm I always check them when she is out but I suppose I should find out how she would react if it did go off. Probably sleep through it . I hope Tuppence can settle now.

 

[snowbunny]

Oh poor Tuppy! I’m glad you worked out what was upsetting her.

 

[Oberon]

Must be all kinds of scary frequencies....

Glad the mystery is solved!!

 

[Stacia]

Tuppy is like me, smoke alarms frighten me to death, I cannot bear the noise when you open them to put in new battery, or the continual chirrup when it needs a new battery. I had two very pleasant firemen came to my house a couple of days ago, complete with fire appliance outside (ready in case they had to go on a shout) and they replaced my smoke alarms with the very latest models.

 

[Atemas]

I had to go over and remove my mum’s carbon monoxide detector yesterday as it had started beeping. It would have driven her mad. I had to order her a new one. Then I ‘killed’ the beeping one by immersing it in a bowl of water!

 

[Stacia]

My fireman offered to fit a carbon monoxide detector for nothing a couple of days ago, we don't have gas so done't need one. Perhaps your local fire service would have done the same?

 

[Natalie]

My fireman offered to fit a carbon monoxide detector for nothing a couple of days ago, we don't have gas so done't need one. Perhaps your local fire service would have done the same?

That's good , we've recently bought one and it was around £15.
Our last house had no gas and we paid to be connected to the main lines, over £300 . Lots of villages around here have many houses without gas, as coal used to come as part of a miner's pension so there was little incentive to switch to gas, though guess that will die out very soon.
Two out of four houses we lived in were like this.

 

[Stacia]

I wish we could connect to gas but none anywhere near us. I dread the winter in case of power cuts, we were off for four days once and it was snowy and freezing, we could see lights about half a mile away from us which was so frustrating, it was hell!

 

[Natalie]

I wish we could connect to gas but none anywhere near us. I dread the winter in case of power cuts, we were off for four days once and it was snowy and freezing, we could see lights about half a mile away from us which was so frustrating, it was hell!

Oh that's awful. Though generally if there's a power cut your gas central heating doesn't work as needs an electric pump too. We had 5 days with no electric once after an autumn storm , and it was grim. Scrabble by candlight loses its allure very quickly. Not romantic.