Oh, It's Only You.

My old dog learned a new trick, or at least it is not something I have seen him do before. He is a watch dog as opposed to a guard dog. The difference being that while he will raise a fuss about someone approaching his territory he does not actually pose a threat to anyone who enters his territory. He is all bluff and bluster, or to put a more positive spin on it I suppose you could say he performs the function of an intrusion alarm. Yesterday we were sitting out in the back yard when he saw two ladies walking on the road above our property. He let out a prefatory growl followed by his distinctively beagle “Woo! Woo! Woo! He continued barking as he charged our fence with his usual bravado. But when the ladies were directly in front of him he did something extraordinary, he stopped barking. Without so much as a whisper or the merest a flick of a tail wag he looked those ladies straight in the eyes, sat down, and yawned at them. It was as if he were saying “Oh, it's only you.”

I tried to tell him that this is no way to treat the ladies, but he is a dog, you know?