Between the mysterious intruder and man’s five best friends, he never stood a chance.
Story by Linda King, St. Francisville, Louisiana
A shrill bark tore me from sleep. Our hyperactive Australian shepherd clawed desperately at the back door, frantic to get out. Our four other dogs, rescues of different shapes and sizes, joined her, growling and barking at something outside. My heart pounding, I sat up and saw my husband, Glenn, getting out of bed.
“Someone’s outside,” I whispered.
“It’s probably just a possum in the garbage again,” he said with a sigh. Although I had confidence in Glenn, a police officer, I was still concerned, because the dogs were so agitated. As he opened the back door, spilling dogs into the yard, I watched from a window.
Under a full moon, I could plainly see my husband standing barefoot on our deck. It was cold, and he looked vulnerable. I wondered if maybe he should have taken his gun, or at least his pants. It was reassuring that the dogs were with him.
The pack ran through the yard, tails up, noses to the ground, raising their heads only to bay. Glenn stepped down from our deck onto a narrow sidewalk that led farther into the yard. Before he reached the end of the walkway, the dogs found the intruder’s scent and let out a collective yelp.
Single file, they charged down the sidewalk toward my husband’s unsuspecting back, so intent on the scent that they plowed right into the back of his legs, taking him down just behind the knees. Glenn crumpled to the walk, the dogs running up and over the length of his flattened body in their single-minded pursuit. It was like something out of a cartoon.
Glenn lay on the cold ground, groaning and cursing for a full minute before starting to push himself up. Just as he began to raise his head, he came eye to eye with a terrified armadillo heading straight for him, dogs at its heels.
Instinctively, Glenn ducked. Up and over came one freaked-out armadillo, immediately followed by five canine units, all in hot pursuit. Again Glenn was flattened. This time he rose quickly, to avoid a third trampling, so I knew he was all right.
I stepped away from the window before he returned to the bedroom, muttering to himself. I tried to keep a straight face as I asked if he had discovered the source of the turmoil. Before retreating to the bathroom, he mumbled that an armadillo had finally escaped the dogs through a hole under the fence.
As he washed muddy paw prints off his backside, I mustered the control to tell him through the door, without laughing, that I felt so much safer with the dogs around to protect us.
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