You’d think that the Storm Defender saga would be over but nope, there is another installment to the story. In Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 2, I shared the story of how the Storm Defender seemed to prevent storms from happening in the first place. This belief became so strong that when it came time for a summer vacation, I used the Storm Defender Dog Jacket as a totem.
I did not tell my husband for fear of breaking the lucky charm that the Storm Defender totem would bring us. For some reason, like telling your birthday wish, saying it out loud might break the spell.
We had planned a week’s vacation at Cayuga Lake, one of the UFO hot spots of the Finger Lakes. We’d spent a lot of money to rent the cottage and had an 18 hour drive each way just to get there. Enjoying time in the lake itself was a big issue.
As departure day came closer, we started looking at the weather predictions for Cayuga Lake and my heart just sank when the predictions involved several days of thunderstorms. According to the weatherman, there was only one day out of the entire week that was guaranteed not to storm.
All that money, all those hours to get there, and we weren’t going to get to enjoy the lake? I was miserable. We hadn’t had a good vacation in several years. At one time we regularly booked cruises to the Caribbean but those days were long gone with the adoption of our newest rescue dog, Sierra. I didn’t have the heart to leave her with someone as she suffered from an intense fear of people in addition to claustrophobia.
The best we could do was plan road trips that included the dogs, and this trip was designed to kickstart our new regime. Renting cottages at the lake was supposed to replace Caribbean cruises in a really fun, dog-friendly way.
We were taking our kayaks and snorkel gear so that we could snorkel for fossils. We were planning to take the dogs kayaking and swimming. It was all about the lake and here was the weatherman predicting thunderstorms for most of the week.
NOOOO!!!!!!! As we were packing to leave, I sank into the most abject misery.
Then I remembered the Storm Defender Dog Jacket. I know it’s going to sound seriously superstitious but I remembered how effectively the arrival of the Storm Defender stopped a string of thunderstorms from appearing a few years earlier.
It had worked just like the rainmakers of old, but in the opposite manner. We’d even taken it on one vacation where storms were predicted, but the rain storms never materialized and we were blessed with gorgeous weather.
Logically I knew that the Storm Defender did not have the power to fend off thunderstorms but the previous coincidences were too much to overlook, and I just felt so powerless in the face of the weatherman’s predictions. I had to try SOMETHING. So I packed the Storm Defender Dog Jacket in secret, not telling a soul about my anti-storm totem.
We arrived at Cayuga Lake late at night, and the next morning started with clear blue skies and a sunny day. The thunderstorms were still being predicted during the week, for at least half a day each day, so we looked for a sudden storm to blow in that afternoon.
It did not. Nor did a rainstorm come the next day or the next. We made it through five straight days of gorgeous weather. Blue skies and sunshine smiled down upon our much-needed vacation. We took the dogs kayaking, we snorkeled for fossils, we took the dogs swimming, and we appreciated every sunny day that came.
There wasn’t a drop of rain until the day before we left, and half of that day was allotted for packing anyway. I truly believed that my special Storm Defender totem had given us this blessing of a vacation. I didn’t tell my husband about the storm totem until we were on the long drive home. Sure enough, the moment I spoke the words and told my secret, the skies opened up and it started to rain.
The moral of the story: If you carry a totem, do not tell anyone! That dilutes the power of your totem and the protection that it offers might fail you. Keep your secrets. Therein lies the power 🙂 (Originally posted on August 7, 2012.)
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 1
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 2
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 3
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 4
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Dakota was a semi-adult shelter dog who was the Queen of Bad Behavior and the Master of Dirty Tricks. Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from Dakota’s awful beginnings to her amazing transformation.
