Tonight I got home late. I had a meeting that ran very long. In fact, it went after dark. I had left the canine team out in the kennels, which normally is a fine thing. Assuming the weather isn’t horrible, they generally love being outside, so they can do dumb dog stuff like sleep and woof at random squirrels or other possibly imaginary objects.
Normally, they bark furiously and ferociously when we drive up the driveway. Pretty much the whole neighborhood knows when we come home. But not when it’s dark. The team is notably silent.
Since I generally don’t like to leave the dogs out in the kennel too long, I usually feel kind of bad and run out to bring them inside. Normally they bark furiously when I approach the kennel. But this evening, there was big silence.
This silence tells me that my 225 cumulative pounds of canine ferocity is actually afraid of the dark. Yes, that watchdog you thought was defending your property may actually be either sleeping or cowering.
Hey, it’s really dark out there. Those squirrels could be gigantic.