Me and my Bruder are German Shepherd dogs. We’re ferocious. Really, we are. We have a job to do and that’s to protect our mama, our daddy and our house.
Sometimes, we take turns guarding the front door. But mostly when the wood door is open and we can see outside the glass door. Since we moved to this new house, we’re on alert a lot more than before. You wouldn’t believe all the activity here. Mama calls it a cul-de-sac, whatever that means. I call it job security.
I’m telling you, we’re constantly on red alert. There’re these big black birds that mama calls just crows. They sit on the fence. Or, they’ll walk around in OUR front yard. I give them a big piece of my mind, oh yes, I do. My mama always says, “Jake, those are just crows. But, thank you for letting me know. You can hush now.” And, I do.
And, there’s the dogs (I think they’re dogs) that have the nerve to walk around in my front yard eating acorns and grass. They’re huge. Their feet are different than ours though, no toes. And, their ears are bigger than ours and some of them have sticks growing out of their heads! Now if that’s not an animal to alert our people about, I don’t know what is! But my mama and daddy both say, “Boys, those are just deer. They live here too, no need to scare them off. Thank you though. Enough.” I have a tough time enoughing with those deer poking around OUR front yard.
Then, there’s those small grey squirrels that drive us nuts! They have the nerve to come down from the trees and dig little holes right in front of the door and hide acorns. I have no idea why they do that all the time, but it drives me and Bruder crazy.
You wouldn’t believe all the humans that live around here. They’re everywhere. They run around, ride bikes, push tiny humans in wheeled boxes, constantly. We tell them all the time that they’d better not even think about coming close to our door. Sometimes they do, though. They come all the way to the door and push a button that sings. Bruder and I bark and bark. And, they just stand there. Don’t they know their life is in jeopardy?
When that happens, Mama always comes to the door, thanks us and walks outside to talk to them. When she does that, we know she’s got everything under control. We’ll sit and watch quietly, just to make sure, though.
But I have to tell you, every Tuesday and Thursday, we watch the door around 2:00 p.m. Because we know the Treat Man will be coming by. When we see his big orange van, we get so excited and we bark. But, not the vicious bark. It’s the kind of bark to say, “Oh boy, the treat man is here! The treat man is here!” Sometimes, he just drives by and he doesn’t come up to the door and we get sad. But the times he does come up to the door, he’ll either pick up the orange bag mama left on the porch for him, or, he leaves a bag of clothes on the porch for her. Either way, he always leaves COOKIES! We love the Treat Man.
Then, we go back to our job. Sometimes, I’ll go take a nap and I leave the guarding up to Bruder. Sometimes, he’ll go take a nap and I’ll guard. Sometimes, we’ll both take a nap, because we know that mama and daddy are in charge and everything is under control.
