Once in awhile something very odd happens when I am recording.  This past Thursday, the 29th of November, 2012 my wife and I were awakened at 12:30 a.m. I heard my dog whining on the back deck. I first thought she had been attacked by one of the dogs that travels occasionally past our home.

[The now dry cove behind our home]

I immediately jumped up and raced for the door not knowing what the problem was. By the time I got outside my dog, Belle, had moved to the side yard and was barking towards something down by the cove, behind our house. Belle stopped and came back into the house and we all went to bed.

When I got up in the morning I listened to my nightly recordings and immediately found this dog barking. At first I was convinced that it was just a stray and I isolated the clip and put in my files for dog barks. I was going to keep it for future reference of dog sounds.

Later I started thinking about the strangeness of that night.

The barking went on for a full five minutes before Belle went outside. Belle normally spends the night going in and out and checking every couple of hours. I am just wondering if the lower tones on these barks did not awaken her as quickly as the  normal higher barks. When Belle went out onto the back deck she did not bark, she instead whined, which is odd. This whining is what woke my wife and I.

I am not saying dogmatically that this is not a stray dog barking, but because of the strangeness behind the recording it will require more sound analysis.

Recorded the 29th of November, 2012.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Illinois Barker

Waveform view and spectral view of the Illinois Barker