It’s seven AM on Thursday morning. I’ve finished my breakfast of fresh-laid eggs on toasted fresh-baked bread, not that I’m gloating, and am surfing on the ‘pooter while finishing off the last of my pot of (fresh-ground) coffee. Out my window Ghost goes to Defcon 2, porpoising over the stunted sage and barking his head off as he heads into the brush to defend his territory from whatever.
I always watch this with concern because here there really do be monsters, but not a very great deal of concern because it happens about twelve times a day and almost always ends well. Besides, that’s his one job and he needs to be allowed to do it.
A few minutes later I hear a loud gunshot.
No, I don’t leap from my chair. I actually relax. I am suddenly reminded that Ian told me he planned to sight a rifle in this morning. If I hold my head just right I can see his target stand from this very chair. I don’t think it’s 300 yards away.
What the sound of that shot tells me is that Ghost will be back very soon, if he isn’t already. Ghost has always hated the noise, and he grows worse about it the older he gets.
And sure enough, there’s a whining at the door.
I’ll just huddle here in the kneehole and keep you safe, Uncle Joel.
I’ve seen that look. Every two weeks a friend comes up from the city for target shooting and lunch. The 3 old dogs would scatter to the 4 corners of the house to hide; the Aussie in the closet under the stairs, the male poodle in the bedroom under the bed and the female poodle in the bathroom in the shower stall. All it took to send them off was mention of Bob, didn’t even take the first shot.
I had a dog once that acted like the gunshots were physically hurting him.
Caused me to wonder if maybe they WERE hurting him – you know, better hearing than us and all.
The only thing leading me to believe that isn’t true is that my bird dog loves the sound of gunfire, and runs to it whenever she hears it. There might be a bird to retrieve, you see.
Of course, there is a marked difference between rifles and shotguns, and I honestly can’t remember if Ive ever fired my rifle around bird dog or not.
Had one dog that would run from gunfire, one,that would run to the gunfire. Didn’t matter who was shooting, me or someone in the distance.