Midnight Attack

My heart was thumping. It always hammered extra hard when the dog barked in the middle of the night. There’s just something about being startled out of a sound sleep, especially by the dog whose primary purpose is to alert to unusual activity. Well, that’s according to me. According to him it would be to alert to unusual food locations- that is what he was usually looking for. He may or may not notice someone breaking into the house in the dead of night, but leave a sandwich crust on a plate on the counter, or leave the bag of pretzels on the couch and he was on them like a monkey on crack.

He was not a big barker. Well, he was plenty big; he looked like he could be 130 pounds easily. It was mostly fluff though, and while we relied on his size and allegedly keener senses to patrol the house at night, we knew we were fooling ourselves. Luckily, he preferred to sleep on the rug in front of the door, so if someone should break in through the door, they would probably wake him up. I know for sure that he would wake up if they hit him with the door. If he was out of range of the door…I am not so sure. He would probably wake up. Then there would be hell to pay. The intruder would have to feed him in order to keep him from jumping in their arms and licking them. But when a one hundred-pounder jumps in your arms, it can be mighty disarming, trust me. You might be the one calling 911 to get him off you.

That's our alarm system. It works reasonable well. He has even caught a prowler in our old neighborhood. He barked incessantly in the middle of the night, so I got up to investigate and sure enough, there was some guy skulking around the neighbor’s house. I stood next to Ben (on his hind legs, we’re about the same height) and we watched the dude while I called 9-1-1. While he can speak on command, he’s pretty garbled- plus he’s very nervous on the phone, so we decided that I would make the call.

The police came and removed the guy. I don’t think he was up to any felonies, not even misdemeanors, as he was wearing a helmet and dragging a wagon. Really. I believe he was shopping for patio pavers, though I never figured out the helmet. But, that part of the story was irrelevant, especially when I heard from a neighbor a few days later that Ben was credited with the apprehension of the prowler. The more I thought about it, the better I liked that story. That is the ultimate security- that the neighborhood knows that you have a watchdog. And that the dog really watches- or at least inadvertently did it once, which happened to be enough to get a reputation for it.

But that was when he was a young punk, full of Benergy and trying to prove that he brought some kind of value to the family- trying to earn his spot in the pack. He’s older now. Tired. And he has concluded that after all these years of being cute, shedding, scarfing food, and chasing cats as his primary contributions, since we haven’t cut him loose yet, he’s here to stay. So the motivation to perform, or earn his keep has gone by the wayside. He has mastered that old saying “Work like a dog”. I think he took it to completely new levels. I have seen my dog ‘work’ and that’s an awesome gig if you can get it! I would like that gig.

So, the alarm- aka the dog- was going off on high alert. My heart was hammering in my chest. I got up and looked around. I see he's on his hind feet at the door- a door with windows- also part of our plan. When the resident dog is looking down at you through the window in the door, odds are you’re not going to want to find out if he’s friendly or not. Even if the door is unlocked.

Ben’s on his hind feet, barking his loudest bark- which is loud. His long jaws and big white teeth are snapping open and closed and the barks are reverberating through the floorboards at my feet. I stood next to him, trying to see in the darkness outside to see what he sees. His tail kept hitting me and I assumed that as he repositioned himself to better scare away the boogieman, he kept bumping me.

I was still trying to adjust to the light of the streetlight and the porch lights and to figure out what he was barking at. The barks were chilling and I was starting to get scared that there was someone out there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something weird; something caught in Ben’s teeth, or stuck in his lips and gums. I couldn’t make out what it was and it did not seem to be bothering him, but after we scared the intruder away, I wanted to take a good look at it. I thought it looked like green paper, but there wasn’t much light and it could well have been my imagination.

Suddenly, a noise. A car door closing. Was that in our driveway? It was hard to hear too much, as the barking continued. Mixed with howls. That was weird. I went to grab my cell phone, fearing I had waited too long. It wasn’t on the counter, but I saw it on the floor, reflecting light from the nightlight. It was open and when I picked it up, it felt sticky, wet even.

Phone in hand, I went back to the door where Ben’s attack stance now appeared to be more of a happy dance…tail wagging and all. Puzzled, I dialed 911, but before I could hit “send”, I saw the pizza delivery guy on the porch.

I hope he got extra sauce, because I’m not going back to sleep anytime soon. And I’m pretty sure that he knows that onions are bad for him.

Copyright Antigone Lett, 2007