On Guard!

Unlike in my apartment, Dorothy actually now has windows with views.  One of her favorite spots is to stand on one of the living room couches and watch the sidewalk and driveway.  She will bark at the occasional passers-by, and get very excited when her Dad gets out of her car.

There is a three-year-old who lives next door and who will now look for Dorothy in her window and give Dorothy a greeting.  To which Dorothy responds by putting her ears back and wagging her stumpy tail.

Here she is saying goodbye to her cousin Lily, and looking a little unpleased to be left:

Dorothy thinking, why would you leave when I am still here?

Suspicious Baked Bulldogge

Although Dorothy has lived with me in my apartment for over a year now, a few nights ago for the first time she noticed her reflection in my oven door.  It stopped her dead in her tracks:  What’s this? You could see her thinking.  A beautiful, yet suspicious, bulldogge in the house and she hadn’t even seen it come in the door?  And then as the wheels continued to turn, she wondered if it might be competition for the attention of her Dad, and did she mention she wasn’t sure where it had come from?! 

So she growled,  And she crouched down a bit.  And she started moving ever so slowly toward the Oven Bulldogge.  And just as she was about to gather all her courage and go face to face with it to give it a sniff, her prankster father reached out and grabbed her butt.  Up jumped Dorothy, a good six feet or so in the air, in total panic.  And when she landed, she scampered far away from the oven dogge.  And here is where I must admit that I laughed a bit.  Dorothy is not a timid or a skittish dog, so this wasn’t behavior I had witnessed before. 

For the rest of the night Dorothy made a wide arc around the oven, never getting too close to it.  But the next day she seemed to have forgotten about her toasty warm alter-ego: from nowhere it appeared and to nowhere it had returned.

Dorothy thinking, it was all just way too creepy!

Smooth Criminal

I was waiting in the self-check-out line at CVS the other day when another customer cut in front of me in the line.  He hadn't seen me, and when he turned around and saw me waiting there he came over and apologized profusely.  He could have been a little bit high -- his apology went on a few seconds too long and he seemed a bit off somehow -- but he also seemed genuinely rather chivalrous and polite.  After he let me go ahead of him with a sweep of his arm, I started ringing up my purchases, and was not done doing so before he apologized again on his way out.

It was a small incident on the whole, but I thought about it on the way home, because there was something very old-fashioned in the man's looks:  I could picture him dressed in a 1920's suit with a moustache, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, all compliments and flattery, yet when he left he'd leave with all your money, plus the pie you had cooling on the windowsill.

And then my mind started wandering, as my mind is wont to do, and I started wondering about Dorothy and her guard dog abilities.  A lot of people who live in my building pass my door on the way to their apartments, so Dorothy is used to hearing many daily comings and goings.  She's also used to hearing conversations of people as they pass by my window at night.  As of late, however, if she hears something different in a footstep, say, or if someone pauses too long by our door, she will rush over growling and perhaps barking once or twice, and I've been amazed at how fierce she sounds!  She has a deep rumbling growl and a downright menacing bark when she wants to.

She's still just as likely to lick and kiss a burglar to death, but if I were lurking outside and heard the sounds Dorothy makes, I'd think twice before breaking in.

Dorothy thinking go ahead, make my day.