Fire Alarm!

Morey and I were at work the other day when the fire alarm went off. I was pretty sure it wasn't a drill because I usually get prior notification before a drill (my office is on the 4th floor and it's a hassle to deal with a drill if we don't have to so we conveniently plan to be out of the building before our drills take place). I got Morey dressed in his gear, grabbed my bag, and we headed to the stairwell, our designated place of refuge. Another one of our staff members can't climb stairs either so the two of us stood in the stairwell while everyone on the 5th floor went down in front of us. Two of our staff members went down to let the building manager know we were staying inside and two of them stayed with me, Morey, and Dora.

The alarm had been going off the entire time and yet Morey was standing calmly by my side. He got so many compliments from the 5th floor staff as they hurried by us on their way downstairs. His ears were back so I knew he was stressed but the casual observer didn't notice. He began to get a little antsy so I asked him to do a lap to give him some loving and silly talk. He obeyed and as I petted him, wafts of Morey hair flew through the air. The stress was causing him to shed more and when I had him get off, my black pants were no longer black. Oh well, that's a small price to pay to make sure Morey was happy and calm.

Eventually the alarms went off and we found out someone had overheated their lunch, causing the alarms to go off. With the excitement over, we headed back to work. Over the next few days, I got many more compliments from staff members who had seen Morey on that day. His calm and cool demeanor, even in the midst of noise and confusion, was impressive and he earned a lot of respect for his professionalism in emergencies. : )

 I usually notify our staff when I leave Morey in my office when I leave and this situation made me realize the importance of doing so. It doesn't happen too often, but I want to make sure someone would think to save Morey and not just assume that because I'm not there, Morey isn't there too. Our "safety leader" is responsible for doing a sweep of the office before evacuating and I talked with my supervisor about making sure the person checks under my desk for Morey during their sweep. It doesn't happy often that I leave Morey (or that we have emergencies that require evacuations) but I would rather be safe than sorry.