Daily Archives: 2013/01/11

You would think that cute can’t also mean more ferocious than all of hell, but you would be wrong.

Laudie, cuteness defined, and such a happy dog, is always at the ready for the worst, wanting to defend what she has and yours truly, ready to lay down her life.

Laudie-dog’s hearing is rather spectacular. She hears things I would never begin to notice. I guess that’s her job given to her by her wonderful Creator. She’s always at DEFCON 5 - at the ready, and last night her antennae threw her into action.

She skipped DEFCON 4, which, for her, would be taking note of the barking of other dogs echoing throughout the ridges, trying to figure out what they are on about, but without joining in, as it’s not her job to bark just to do it.

Ever polite, Laudie-dog pretended to move only into DEFCON 3 while she was in the hermitage, so that I myself wouldn’t get a heart attack. She could hardly hold herself back, snorting, sniffing, jumping up and down, glancing at me to see if I was catching on, and then looking in the direction of the noise, again and again, then snorting and sniffing and snorting and sniffing, and beckoning me to let her out and let her out NOW if I expected to survive what she knew was happening outside.

So, O.K. DEFCON 2 for Laudie-dog. I opened the door and she was — how to say it? — a nuclear weapon that was deployed but not yet set off. She ran down the steps and straight into the pitch dark forest. How she could see before her eyes could adjust is just amazing to me.

It only took her perhaps four seconds to go into a wild frenzy of growling and barking and charging and threatening whatever it was. I stayed outside the door — silly me — peering into the darkness. I don’t have a gun, but whether man or beast, standing outside amidst such hellish mayhem would indicate that I did have a gun and was willing to use it.

Thank goodness, nuclear war was not imminent. I now heard whatever it was, perhaps only twenty yards away, smashing through the forest, heavily breaking branches, making an ever so annoyed get-away. So, DEFCON 1 was avoided.

Because of the awkward escape — not what panthers or lynx or bobcats do, or what coyotes or wolves do — I’m guessing that it was a bear, or a human intruder. One swat from an annoyed bear and that would be the end of Laudie-dog. But, she doesn’t care. Now, there’s a lesson for me, for all of us.

If it was a human intruder, he knows that I’m willing to have a confrontation, which will put him off, right?

I’m happy to have Laudie-dog always at the ready.