Bark Now, Ask Questions Later

When our beloved Cinnamon died, I swore I would never have another dog, it was just too painful losing her. I lasted almost a year before I found myself standing in the middle of the room, wailing, “I need a dog!” My husband sighed. “Please try and find one that’s not a barker.” I immediately started scouring online rescue sites and after weeks of looking, came across a litter of darling terrier mix puppies at a shelter about ninety miles away. We were planning a trip across the state to visit our kids, and I figured we could stop on the way back and see if the pups were still available. They were. When one of the trio jumped wildly up and down, shouting in dog-speak, “Pick me, pick me!” and climbed up into my husband’s face, the deal was sealed. For the first few months, Luna was attentive but quiet, almost non-verbal — but once she decided she belonged, she started noisily alerting us to anything and everything. Yesterday when we went for a walk, she even had the audacity to bark at Jesus in a Nativity scene up the road. Every morning she looks out the window and vociferously watches “Squirrel TV”. She looks out and barks, runs to warn me of the imminent danger, then back to the window, then to me, and on it goes until I open the door and let her out. “I’m sure glad we didn’t get a barker,” I tell my husband as she carries on. I thought the noise might wear on him, but he remembers the old “Lassie” television show and  just shrugs and says, “Timmy must’ve fallen in the well again.”