My dog, as much as I love and care for him, is utterly useless.
The other night, during the light sprinkling they call a "storm" on the news, I was deeply involved in doing some PCR sequencing analysis or watching some dumb show on TV (I forget which) when an opossum (or 'possum) the size of a large cat was spotted on the floor. Inside the house. Not five feet from me.
Minardi had been running in and out the dog door, but never with any sound or evidence of a struggle, and was now sitting quietly on the couch taking one of his many naps. In the end the opossum (or 'possum) was pushed outside using an upended table and later carried on a shovel out by the trash cans, and that activity got some interest from him, but he failed utterly to protect me.
One of two things happened, the way I see it. He found the critter on one of his journeys outside and brought it in, or it made its own way in through the dog door, saw a room bristling with animals and humans and fainted. If it's the first, I find in incredible that Minardi would capture such a great prize and then leave it alone, but I've never known the joy of licking myself so that may be hard to resist.
If it's the latter, well, the damn thing somehow got into the house and settled near me and my dog, my loyal and true protector, didn't even notice. Now, this is a dog who cannot tolerate any cat sitting on a roof across the street and barely visible to the naked eye from existing. He barks at phantoms constantly, protects me from every dog on a leash, and still gets excited by the UPS guy (even though he brings neat stuff).
Here there was the first bona-fide intrusion into our living quarters, a definite assault on our pack, and the dog ... did ... nothing.
The next day the opossum (or 'possum) was not on the shovel. Curiously, later that day I receive one of those e-mails listing "unbelievable" facts (the ones listing duck quacks and the like) and one of the entries was that opossums (or 'possums) do not "play possum," they faint when faced with a threat.
That matters little to me. I may have to put Minardi on half-rations to sharpen up his responses. If I'd built a doghouse, he'd be in it.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
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2 comments:
Our littler pup barks fiercely at the tarp on the neighbor's roof. The bigger one barks fiercely at us for daring to watch Lost while eating pizza. Neither particularly care about the mailman, UPS guy, or impending threats from elsewhere.
Those tarps can be dangerous. Maybe "frightening" is the better term.
The one thing I would like the dog to bark at (the people digging through our trash on trash day) he steadfastly refuses to consider a threat. He knows better than to bother me when Lost is on, though.
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