Dog Day Afternoon

DOG DAY AFTERNOON

I don’t move, pretending to be asleep. I can feel the other’s eyes on me, watching. The same way he has watched me every day. Silently judging. So superior, so high and mighty, so much better than me—or so he thinks. But what he doesn’t know is that I have the upper hand in this game of his. I have a secret. I will show him who’s higher and whose mightier; who’s faster and who’s meaner.

It’s been going on like this since we arrived four days ago. Whenever I come outside to relax he comes to the fence and stares at me. He just stares, silently goading me, daring me to say something, do something.

We’ve had a number of confrontations over the last few days. I challenge him, he ignores me, knowing that I can’t do a damned thing to him—I’m the visitor and he’s the local—so he has the advantage. Or so he believes.

I know his name is Winston. And I know that he lives next door. Apparently, he’s the king of this little fiefdom. But that doesn’t give him the right to invade my privacy. It may not be my usual ‘hood, but it’s my ‘hood for the rest of the week until Carrie, my partner, finishes her conference, and we go home. And I plan to show Winston what that means.

I slit open my eye—not enough to let him know that I’m awake, but just enough so that I can watch, and wait until the time is just right. I watch him sitting statue-like, staring, not trying to hide his harsh gaze on me. Just sitting there out of reach—or so he thinks—waiting for me to wake up and react.

But I don’t. At least not right now. I’m in law enforcement, and I know how to wait. I’ve got the patience of Job. I just have to wait for the right moment to spring into action.

I watch my tormentor. Apparently staring at me has bored him, so he starts to yell, trying to wake me. I still fein sleep. When I don’t react, he comes right up to the fence, looks at me, his head between the wrought iron bars, and yowls.

I spring to my feet and throw myself at the bars of the fence. Winston jumps back, but he’s smiling thinking that the gate will stop me. But he is wrong—dead wrong. I am a Belgian Malinois, and a six foot high gate means nothing to me. I’m over before Winston’s puny cat brain tells him he has to move—right now! Perhaps it’s the eighty-four pounds of sleek, athletic dog hurtling towards him that finally jolts his feline flight limbic system into overdrive.

He takes off, but I’m right on his tail, literally. He is so petrified that he can’t decide which way to go. What Winston doesn’t know is that I am so much faster than he is, that I am just toying with him, trying to scare the bejesus out him, in hopes that he get the message—don’t tease anything bigger than you. I could catch Winston—in two bounds I would be on him—but I don’t. I could catch him and crush him between my powerful jaws—but I don’t. What I want to do is chase him until he is tired and defeated, so that he knows whose ‘hood this really is.

Winston tears across the front yard. For some reason his cat brain has instructed him to run away from his home. Fine with me. He tries some maneuvers to lose me, but he fails. He flies under a bush—I follow right into the foliage. He darts under an SUV—I crawl under after him. He jumps up on the the roof of a truck—I bound up beside him. This last move so unnerves Winston that he jumps straight up, turns in mid-air, and takes off, with me in hot pursuit.

We run helter-skelter through the neighbourhood. Winston is moving full out. Me, I’m just pacing him. Winston is panting harshly. Me, not so much. And he’s slowing down, and he realizes that the end of the chase is near. In a last ditch effort, Winston runs towards a tree, and scales it, claws grabbing the bark, propelling him upwards. But not high enough. As I said, I am a Belgian Malinois, and besides jumping six foot fences, I can climb trees. Not as well as a cat, but Winston’s tired, and he’s running on fumes. I’m fresh as a daisy, and have the energy of a toddler.

Up he goes, but only to the first set of branches. I smile to myself—he’s only five feet up. Piece of cake. So I leap right up the trunk. Before he knows what’s happening, I’m beside him on what he thought was his safe perch. He hisses and arches his back, moving backwards along to branch to get as far away from me as he can. I could catch him right now, probably before he can even swat me, but I don’t. I just look at him. He blinks first and looks away. He has lost, and he knows it. He also knows that he is alive because I let him live.

My job done, I hop out of the tree, and head towards home. I look around. I am quite a ways from my backyard. I use my nose and follow my own scent mingled with the the fear smell that has emanated off of Winston.

As I trot along, I take in my surroundings. When I am working, I have to keep all my senses on alert. A scene in front of me catches my eye. There is a woman—an older woman—trundling down the sidewalk pulling a grocery buggy behind her in one hand, her purse in the other, hanging at her side. She doesn’t see the young thug behind her, scoping out what he thinks is a simple snatch and grab. But I do. Before he can pounce on the woman, I jump into action. I silently run up behind him and growl.

“Hey! What the fuck!” he says, twisting to look behind him. He sees me and freezes mid-twist, eyes popping out of their sockets.

I show him my teeth, a fierce and threatening growl emanating from my throat. The fur on the back of my neck is standing straight up, my ears flattened. I stare at him. I let a bit of saliva drip from my jaws. I am indomitable.

“Holy shit!” he says, backing up., almost tripping over his own feet in a rush to put serious space between us. “Don’t bite me, man!” He shakes his head. “I swear I wasn’t going to hurt her!” He turns and runs—faster than Winston—away around the corner and disappears.

The woman has stopped, and is taking in the scene. She looks from me to the corner where the young thug has disappeared around, and back at me.

“Thank you,” she says to me, her hands shaking, her eyes darting around.

I’ve stopped growling, my teeth are hidden, and my tail is wagging. I walk up to her, and she strokes the fur along my back.

“You’re not lost are you?” she says. “You can come live with me, if you are.” She smiles at me. I know a dog person when I see one.

Because I can’t talk, I nudge her forward, and walk beside her all the way to her home. I’m pretty sure young thug is long gone, but I want to make sure. As she unlocks her door, she looks back at me, and says. “Wait here.” I do as requested, and she returns almost immediately. “My dog Champ loved these treats.” She holds something out to me. “They were his favourite.” She pauses for a moment. “He’s gone now. I miss him.”

I sniff the treat. Peanut butter! I love peanut butter! But I have been taught never to eat anything unless Carrie says I can, and she’s not here right now. But the woman looks so hopeful. Instead, I go to the door, and lean against her. She pets me again, and sighs. Then I’m gone.

I’m following the scent home, when I hear it. At first it’s very faint. Then the volume increases. At first I’m confused, then I recognize the sound.

A baby! I hear a crying baby. Usually I would ignore the sound. Baby humans are noisy, always unhappy, always crying. Carrie’s sister has a baby, and it is always bawling, unhappy about something. But this is a different sound. It’s more than just “feed me,” “change me,” “hold me.” It’s more intense, more frantic. It’s the sound of something wrong. I follow the crying baby sounds to a vehicle parked in a driveway. I jump up and look in the car. There are no other humans, just a baby girl all alone in the car, strapped into her car seat, crying hysterically. I know that this is not good. In our job, Carrie and I have responded to a baby locked in a hot vehicle. It was not a good outcome. But that’s not going to happen on my watch!

I run up to the front door of the house and bark. And bark. And bark. I bark my loudest bark. I jump up on the door. I throw myself against the door. I keep it up and keep it up! There has to be someone in the house!

The baby’s cries are getting weaker.

I have to do something! The woman! I turn and run back to her house.

“WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”

She appears at the door almost immediately.

“Well, you came b—” she starts.

I grab her dress and gently tug her out of her house. I drop it and run down the driveway. I look back at her. I run back and forth again.

“You want me to follow?” she says.

“WOOF!”

I run down towards the street, and she follows me. I can’t run very fast because she’s slow, but she’s trying her best to keep up with me. Within two minutes we are at the house. I run up to the car, and look in the window. The baby is mewling now, sweat plastering her hair onto her scalp.

“Oh my!” says the woman. She tries the door. Locked! She looks around, grabs a rock from the garden and smashes the front driver side window. The glass shatters, and she sticks her hand in and unlocks the doors. She opens the back door, bends in and quickly unstraps the baby out of her seat, pulling her into the cooler outside air. While holding the baby, she pulls out her phone and calls nine-one-one, explaining the situation.

She shoves her phone in her pocket and looks around “Water!” she says. I search, and find nothing.

The woman runs up to the door and bangs her fist on it, almost rattling it on its hinges. A disheveled man opens the door, wiping sleep from his eyes.

“What the hell do you want! I’m trying to sleep!” he yells at the woman. Then he spots the baby. “What are you doing with Cassie?” he says, fear flooding his face.

“Water!” says the woman. “We need water!”

He just stares at her. She pushes past him, into the house. The man just stands there, stunned. The police pull up behind the car and two officers jump out, running towards the car. An ambulance is right behind them, and a firetruck pulls to a stop at the bottom of the driveway.

I look at the chaos, and run towards the front door, where the man is still just standing there, obviously in shock. I bark, getting everyone’s attention. Then I dart into the house and back out again to make sure they are following me.

“Where’s the baby?” asks the EMT. The man just points into the house.

The professionals are here, so I trot off towards my temporary backyard, job well done. I hop back over the fence into the yard, and settle down in the shade to continue my much-delayed afternoon nap. Winston appears on top of the fence, and drops down, cautiously. He tentatively walks over to where I’m laying, and curls up beside me. Within minutes, we’re both asleep.