Our dog Sadie barks in many circumstances. She barks if someone comes to the door. Or—until recently—she also barks if someone comes to a door on the TV. She barks if we bring up the topic of a “N-E-W—D-O-G-G-I-E” (Hence, the spelling). She likes to sniff nearby trucks. If there’s a person inside, she ignores them. Unless, they open the door, that is. If that happens, she barks and lunges, though her tail is wagging the whole time. I don’t think she’d “attack” someone unless Wendy or I were put at risk.
Sometimes, she has barked to be let out to go potty, though now, she simply comes and stares at me while sending the thought that she has to go *big* potty! On our walks, for instance, she barked at someone’s (heretofore unseen and unsniffed) Halloween decoration. She barked because a traffic cone had fallen over.
Nonetheless, she is far less of a barker than many dogs I’ve observed.
Her barks, like my words, can be uttered with varying degrees of insistence and urgency. In fact, I hear a rumor that practiced orators can even lie with sincerity and passion. The closest Sadie has come to “lying” is that she barks insistently—hard to distinguish from a “I have to go potty” bark. What she often wants is attention. She’s okay with playing tug, or hide the dragon, or ball in the hallway. Of course, she’s always game for a walk. She doesn’t want to be ignored while we watch news or a series on TV. Even when the movie features a dog, she doesn’t think that counts as “paying her some attention.” (Though she does usually watch those segments).
Today, however, came the most insistent bark ever. I thought I had seen the top of the Bark Scale, but no. What I had heard before was a “6” on the newly discovered ten point scale.
Here is how it happened. We were in the back garden playing ball (off leash). I was picking up the six squeaky balls for another round when suddenly, the air was split with Sadie’s previously undisclosed 10-bark. At the same time, she stood at attention. And then she charged up the stairs toward the house. (“Flew up the stairs” actually, but I didn’t think anyone would believe me.)
As I tried to catch up with Sadie, several possibilities ran through my mind. Was there an actual intruder? Did a coyote or even a puma come on to the property? Or, was it just my wife coming out onto the deck?
I turned the corner and saw the trigger. Our cat Shadow was outside on the deck. Sadie insistently “herded” her back inside. The door to the back deck had been left ajar. By me. Not a puny little jam jar, understand; a dill pickle jar. I came up the stairs but Sadie had already solved the problem and ran inside to follow up with Shadow on the scope of her transgressions. I thanked her.
This is not something that we “trained Sadie to do.” Maybe she found that Shadow’s being somewhere new offended her sensibility in the same way that she objected to our neighbors putting up Halloween decorations without checking with her first. But no. Her bark and physical attitude were much more severe, insistent, and loud!
I had the impression that she sensed that the cats were not to go outside. She had certainly heard us say that in various ways. She had also observed me nudging Shadow back inside when she wanted to follow Sadie and me out on a neighborhood stroll. And, I often give Shadow a rationale as well. That rationale features coyotes quite prominently. Sadie may know what a coyote is. I’ve pointed one out to her once. But even Shadow knows it’s not a good thing.
(AI generated)
To fully contextualize this, I should mention that generally speaking, despite the fact that Sadie outweighs Shadow by a factor of five, Sadie seems more afraid of Shadow than vice versa. When Sadie was a puppy, she tried playing with each cat based on the way two puppies might play together. None of the cats took kindly to these approaches and on at least a few occasions, swiped her with claws engaged. She stands up for herself if one of the cats starts to eat her food, but she isn’t nearly so aggressive as she could be. Of course, I’ve only ever observed this behavior when I’ve—er—um—-observed it. When I’m around, there is a quality to Sadie’s bark of asking for my help and I usually provide it, telling the cats not to eat Sadie’s food.
This made it all the more remarkable that Sadie would be capable of dominating Shadow completely and herding her back into the house.
I do put a fair amount of stock in Sadie’s evaluation of things. It depends on what the domain is. She’s notoriously bad at valuing the plants in our garden. She leaves them alone for the most part but if a ball falls into one, rather than being satisfied with simply removing the ball, she “punishes” the offending plants viciously. She’s not much good at picking stocks either. Nonetheless, today’s episode made me trust her judgement (and reactions) more.
I certainly don’t want to play the tritest role in that most famous of all tropes for Westerns:
“Hush, Paint! There’s nobody out there in the dark woods. There’s nothing to worry about!” Want to survive? Pay attention.
Consider me barking quite loudly. Neighing quite insistently.
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petersironwood 