January 30 – “The late-night invasion”

As you know if you have been reading my posts over the last few days, I have been sleeping in my recliner for about a week.  No, that’s not code for “The doghouse with Chris.”  I just haven’t been able to lie flat without coughing like crazy. 

So the other night I was just settling in, twisting and turning, trying to find just the right spot where my body would think it was really bedtime and my head would be tricked into staying unclogged.  Chris had gone on to the bedroom, to settle in herself – into our nice, warm bed (See, the whole sleep in the recliner bit is not as sleepover-fun as it might sound).  As the sounds of the day finally began to quiet in my thinking, I heard a different noise.  This one was not inside my head, however.  This one was clearly recognizable.  This one was … the dogs barking.  Freddy, to be exact.

She was out in the back yard engaging in one of those yelping, excited kinds of barking tirades that are hard to describe.  It was obvious she was seeing something, but there seemed to be a hint of mystery in her bark as well.  What was it she was protecting us from?  Or was she just playing around with a snail on one of the plants?  Freddy’s kind of strange that way.  After a time, she even drew Fritz’s attention.  He obviously had not yet seen anything, but he was adding an occasional baritone bark to Freddy’s soprano warblings. 

I waited and listened for several long minutes, hoping they would simply tire and head on to bed.  But sadly, they did not.  So I dragged myself out of the recliner and trudged into the kitchen for a flashlight.  I flipped on the back porch light and stepped outside, leaving the door open behind me.  Freddy immediately came to greet me, but she didn’t stay long, she was on a mission, and was not to be deterred.  Fritz came over to join me, though.  His attitude was more, “She’s off her rocker.  Can you get her to just shut up?”  But about that time a flash of white raced across my field of vision, with Freddy’s distinctive tiny brown body close behind.  A very large white cat made its way from our back flower bed, onto and over the fence.  Well, that would certainly be a cause for alarm.  After all, we can’t have cats squatting in the back yard.  What would the respectable dog community think?  I figured that would settle the issue.  I complemented Freddy on her pursuit and called her to come inside.

But I was ignored.  She decided that it was in her contract to make one last run-through of the offended vicinity of the flower bed.  She sniffed and shook violently.  Fritz stood by, wagging his tail and thinking, “Give it a rest, Shrimp.”  And suddenly, Freddy yelped in abject fear and leapt backwards from the bed, landing at my feet.  The yelping mixed with an excited, almost-crazed bark that I didn’t know could come from such a small mouth.  She gathered herself, and bravely moved forward again, that other-worldly yapping sound still emanating from her mouth.  And just as she reached the edge of the flower bed, another cat, at least twice her size, hissed loudly and raced toward the safety of the fence.  Fritz finally saw this one and gave a feeble farewell growl, but Freddy followed it all the way, bravely and loudly encouraging the rapidity of its exit.  All the racket reached through the house and brought Chris to the back door to see what was going on.  It took me a moment or two to recover from laughing, but I filled her in.  Freddy was calming back down now, so we assumed the yard had been deemed safe.  Fritz was certainly ready to call it a night, and so were we.  And so, I can only imagine, were our neighbors.  So sorry, my adjacent friends.

Colossians 2:8 says, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

Father, thank you for our little yard guard dog.  Amen.