Did pets predict earthquake?

Mayor Mark Kruzan's dogs seemed to know an earthquake was coming.\nMoments before Friday's magnitude 5.2 quake shook the Midwest, rousing many residents from their beds, Kruzan said his dogs began barking and awoke him. Then, his home started swaying.\n"My dogs figured it out before I did," he said.\nMany other Hoosiers also said their pets woke them up before they felt the earthquake, which had an epicenter six miles from West Salem, Ill.\nCats hid under beds, dogs woke their owners, rodents scurried about in their cages, and birds flapped wildly in their cages or sounded a cry of alarm.\nMonroe County resident Deborah Stroud said her pet mice, Aiden and Smith, went berserk just before the earth started moving.\n"They were running in the wheel like crazy and actually fighting over who was going to be in it. I don't think I have ever seen them run that fast in it before. At one point they were both running in it side by side," Stroud said.\nHannah Murray's 2-year-old chinchilla, Gizmo, started chirping and scurrying around his cage just before it hit.\n"I got out of bed to check on him and I felt the first rumble," she said.\nElizabeth Evans said Count Basie, her pet cockatiel, starting "freaking out and screeching, which woke us up, then the bed started shaking ... The bird sensed it before we did."\nWhen a 4.6-magnitude aftershock hit hours later, Evans was walking in the woods with her dog, who also sensed something.\n"He was sniffing a stump and then suddenly backed away. I thought something had stung him on the nose," she said.\nFor more updates, check idsnews.com or see Monday's IDS.