Guard dogs

Guard Dogs.  That’s what we are.  Or we like to THINK we are.  OK.  I guess when you say those words, the vision of shaggy dogs doesn’t come to mind.  Nor does the tri-colored happy giant fit the picture.  BUT we do take our jobs very seriously– and you can’t judge a book by its shaggy cover.  Every day, it is CRUCIAL that we alert our human to ANY “intruders” on our property – and ANY unusual sounds.  “Intruders” include delivery men, children selling tickets for school raffles, neighbors, friends of our human, relatives of our human, rabbits, cats, birds, foxes, falling leaves and large insects.  Sounds include the beeping of a truck backing up, the neighbors up the road coming home and on occasion, the wind.  Yesterday, at about 2:30 AM, ONE of us heard SOMETHING.  All we need is for ONE of us to BEGIN to bark and it sets off a chain reaction – and then ALL of us join in with a riotous stampede to the source of the sound. Such great fun for our human at that hour.  And just as soon as we started yesterday, we quickly realized there was nothing to bark about – so WE quickly went back to sleep.  Our human?  Not so quickly.

Earlier this spring, our human found an old Labrador Retriever figure in the garage (from back in the days of Beamish the lab) and she decided to put it outside at the edge of the woods.  Well.  When Frodo, the supreme guard dog and barker extraordinaire, went outside, he went into full guard dog mode.  He HAD to get that dog off his property.  BUT, he WAS just a TINY bit scared of this vicious intruder.  This video is just a SHORT segment of Frodo’s initial meeting with the Scary Black Dog.  And you can hear Paxton barking in the house.  Me?  I went up to the dog, cautiously sniffed it and then promptly peed on it. 

I didn’t say too much to Frodo about it – as I think he was a bit embarrassed about his reaction once he realized what it was.  I mean seriously, it’s a flat wooden dog.  It’s not scary.  I mean, it’s not like it’s a lint brush or something.

©  2014  Linda Wozniak