3.6 Magnitude Illinois Earthquake Was Predicted By Shelter Dogs?

As of this writing, there is no way I'm aware of that you can predict an earthquake. Perhaps I'm mistaken though as there's a report that the 3.6 magnitude earthquake in north-central Illinois was predicted by shelter dogs. Woof.

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I saw this remarkable report on Yahoo Life. They say that dogs at Illinois Valley Animal Rescue in La Salle, Illinois started howling just prior to 4:41 am Wednesday, November 15, 2023 just before the ground shook with one of the more unusual earthquakes in Illinois this year. 5 seconds later, the earthquake occurred registering a confirmed 3.6 magnitude. The animals knew.

Can animals really predict earthquakes?

I turned to the source of earthquake knowledge, the USGS. They call the evidence of animals predicting earthquakes as "anecdotal". They go on to say "a mechanism explaining how it could work, still eludes us". In their defense, it would be hard to truly understand what an animal senses (if anything) that would alert them that an earthquake is imminent since (breaking news) animals can't talk (yet).

It's an interesting thought that animals could have a sense humans don't have that warn them the Earth beneath them is about to be unstable. I'm not sure how this will ever become science, but I know that if I suddenly saw my pets acting strange, I would be watchful of something happening in nature.

Time to accept that just maybe animals know/sense things that we don't.