Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Pacifying Val Thevictorian

Saturday morning, before the incoming snow, as I wasted time before making my grocery shopping list to get out early and avoid the crowd...I sat down at my laptop, Shiba, overlooking the front yard by way of the living room picture window. I was leisurely browsing the internet like I didn't have a care in the world, instead of preparing to do battle with hard-core storm-shoppers over bread and milk

When out on the porch
There arose such a clamor
I peeped through the mini-blinds
To see who dared to yammer.

It was Ann, our not-terribly-bright black german shepherd. She stormed down off that porch like a regular guard dog, and tore across the front acreage like she meant business. I was a bit discombobulated. She never gets all aggressive like that. Usually just stands right under the window and barks her fool head off. But this time, she was a bitch on a mission.

I didn't see anything that might trigger her usual hair-trigger all-for-naught woofing. No marauding dogs, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, escaped horses, alleged meter-readers, or shadows. I kept my eyes on Ann. She barreled across the driveway to that section of yard that runs along the gravel road.

FOUR DEER WERE STANDING LIKE SO MANY PRACTICE TARGETS AND YARD ORNAMENTS, LOOKING OVER THEIR SHOULDERS TOWARD THE HOUSE.

Ann charged right up to them, never breaking stride, and they flagged their cottony tails at her and bounded up the gravel road. Darn that dog. What a pretty picture those deer would have made. They were big by Val standards. Their flipped-up tails were about ten inches tall. Not that women are good judges of that sort of thing, of course. Not an antler in the bunch, all were does. I suppose they were having their morning coffee klatch in our yard, since the hunters were thirsting for blood in the woods.

That's just like Ann, to defend our homestead against the quartet of deer, who of course are much more dangerous than chicken-eating neighbor-dogs or strangers who make themselves at home on our range while we're away at work. She's also an ace at defending us from imaginary intruders between 2:00 and 6:00 a.m., from her loyal post just under our bedroom window.

I don't know why Ann can't be more like my sweet, sweet Juno. Who would have herded those whitetails into a pretty parade formation for my viewing pleasure, having fortified herself with free-range chicken eggs and a heaping handful of cat kibble the previous evening.