Whenever my smoke alarm goes off in my house, my Rottweiler goes crazy! She jumps up, huffing, snorting, and barking, and runs into the den where she begins frantically sniffing the carpet, turning in circles. Then she will jump into the air with all four feet and pounce back down hard with her front feet, over and over, until the alarm is turned off. Why does she do this? Everytime I open my oven, she starts up - she thinks that the alarm is automatically going to go off (my alarm is set too near the oven, I suppose!) Any ideas?

All I can say is that they have much the same effect on me they are sooooo noisy and high pitched LOL perhaps it has something to do with the pitch though? Regards Gina

Maybe you should stop burning the dinner - sorry a bit of levity. In a similar vein see my "Goes nuts in the car..." topic for unexplained phenomina - maybe he doesn't like my driving <g>

id say she reacting to what she'll see as an intrusion--not knowing where and why its going off-also the pitch of it will probably be fairly uncomfortable to a dog--try boiling its much friendlier

Dizzy
you just don't get any better, boiling dogs is really unnesessary, a gentle toasting is usually enough i find!:D

Perhaps by jumping and landing heavy on her front feet she thinks shes killing whatever it is that makes the noise, as far as she's concerned it works cos the noise stops!! jumping like that is how my nans old rotty cross used to kill the mice in the shed! And occasionally our rotty does it to spiders!
I have to admit to disconecting the smoke alarm in the hall and just having the one at the top of the stairs, mine went off nearly every meal time and terrified the kids

Julie and everyone, thanks for all the suggestions (and humor) concerning my Rottie's bouncing problem! Here's a theory I was given about why the high pitched smoke alarm sets her off to bouncing- polar bears also behave very similarly when they are out on the ice and they sense seals underneath. They begin to bounce up and down on the ice with their heavy front paws in order to break the ice and get at the seals underneath. What do you think of this theory? It certainly seems to make sense, strange as it may seem! Perhaps the high pitched tones of the alarm cause vibrations on the floor, causing my Rottie to think that something is underneath it that she needs to get at!

Well I hope you never get mice (under the floor) LOL !! Gina

Hi, here's my two cents worth
When the smoke alarm goes off, it hurts her hearing. Those things certainly hurt my ears if I"m in the same room, can't imagine what it does to a dog's sensitive hearing. Too high pitch and to close for her to to howl like many dogs with the noon siren.

Sound gives off vibrations that she can probably feel from the floor. She can't figure out exactly where the sound is emanating, but she feels it from below her. Perhaps, the detector had stopped one time at the same moment, she leapt. Who knows? She's probably usually at the point of "Make it stop!" just due to the pain.

Then to top it off, she's made an association with your oven door opening and the alarm going off. Working with her by opening and closing a cold oven door could be helpful to desensitize her. Although this does give new meaning to "4 alarm chili"
toodles & good luck.