To fully understand the motivations behind this story we must go back to a very special beginning. Sometimes things happen that have a big effect on how people, and dogs, react later in life. That is the theme of this Dog Tale.
Shorty was a little dog living at the Pierce County Animal Shelter in Tacoma, Washington. It is not clear how Shorty ended up there, but she did. Was she rescued from the street? Nobody knows and Shorty never explained.
People were sad to learn that Shorty was bullied and pushed around by the bigger dogs at the shelter. This little dog was not particularly remarkable. She was black and gray and very scruffy. She seemed to have several layers of dog hair with the top layer being very wiry and the lower layers soft and cuddly. Some people thought she looked like a kitchen scrubbing pad with legs. Other people said she looked like Toto the starring dog in The Wizard of Oz.
Maybe one statement or the other was true. Even so, those are not reasons for the bigger dogs to push Shorty around. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair.
One day a human named Linda was visiting the Animal Shelter and saw Shorty in her kennel. Shorty was looking through the wires of her kennel at Linda, and Linda noticed. Linda went over to check on the little doggy. Just as Linda was about to pet Shorty a big dog pushed little Shorty away.
Well, well, well! That really annoyed Linda. What I have not told you is that Linda has a very strong sense of what is right and wrong or fair and not fair. Most people are like that, but Linda expresses her mind on the subject, which a lot of other people do not do. This is important because Linda is an example to others, and Shorty noticed this.
Right away Linda said, “This will not stand!” She can be very dramatic. That is not too much of a surprise because Linda was also an actress and playwright. Now she teaches acting and directs movies and stuff like that. I think Linda was going to “go all Shakespearean” right then and there!
I can assure you that you do not want to be around when Linda goes all Shakespearean.
Next thing Shorty knew, she was out of her kennel and in Linda’s arms. Shorty watched her new protector sign a big pile of paperwork and together they walked out of the Shelter. Linda lifted little Shorty into her car and off they went. Linda later said that all the way home her new dog friend napped just as if she knew she was going to a safe place.
That is how Shorty ended up living at Linda’s house. It is also how Shorty came to realize that one of the best things anybody can do (and that includes dogs) is to help somebody who is in trouble.
I think I should clarify one important point. Shorty was not a brave dog. In fact, she was once chased all over a yard by a cat. Shorty was pretty much like everyone else, neither brave nor fearful, just sort of in the middle. She was very average, probably like you and me.
One of the things that we learn is that when it is necessary for people to step up in an emergency it is often the average people who contribute the most. That is what happened with Shorty one day in July.
After a couple of years Linda and Shorty moved from Tacoma to a little town in Illinois. It was a nice town, and everyone knew everyone else. The neighbors were cool, too. Shorty and Linda had a big bunch of friends.
Shorty had some special friends that included Monica and Albert and their little baby that everyone called “Ting”. Shorty and Ting became best pals on Day One and stayed that way. Shorty was very protective of Ting and liked to make sure that everything was OK all the time.
Now, that’s a good friend, don’t you think?
One day Ting and her parents were visiting Linda and Shorty. It was a hot day in July, a very hot day, and everyone was standing around outdoors looking for some shade and saying things like, “Boy, it’s hot.”
That’s not a very original thing to say, but I have noticed that when it is too hot people always say, “Boy, it’s hot.” Then when it is too cold, they say, “Boy, it’s cold.”
That’ what people say, and Shorty thought it was quite funny. She followed the usual dog policy on the subject of weather, it is what it is, and there’s no use in barking about it.
Across the alley from Shorty’s house was the home of a big German Shepard. This German Shepard was a very nice dog and was trained to work for the police. His primary job was to look after his human owner, and he looked after her very well.
We use the term “owner” rather loosely here. Who can really say that they “own” a dog? Mostly it is a partnership of two friends looking after each another.
This German Shepard was sure that his job was to make sure there was no trouble. That’s a pretty good job, and he was an expert. On this particular day he was helping his human friend work in her flower garden. She would pull weeds or dig a hole, and he checked her work. Sometimes he put a paw in and helped.
As I said, the day was terribly hot, and Baby Ting was uncomfortable. Her mother, Monica, was holding her and trying to keep Ting from being bothered by the heat, bugs, and other annoying things that seem to infest every inch of Central Illinois between the Mississippi and Wabash Rivers in July.
Ting started to wiggle a little bit and cry. You know how babies are, right? Then you know that it was no big deal, but the German Shepard thought that maybe something was going on and he decided to investigate. After all, he was trained in investigations. He came across the alley and saw Monica and Ting. He ambled over to them to say “hello”, which he did, in a very friendly way. The big dog decided that everything was perfectly fine, and that this whole crying business was perfectly normal for baby humans and turned to go home to his own yard and get back to helping with the gardening.
Suddenly, he noticed that he was being bitten by a really big bug in the butt.
The only thing is, it wasn’t a bug that had bitten, it was Shorty.
Shorty heard Baby Ting cry and when she turned around to see what the matter was Shorty saw the bigger dog examining Ting and her mom. Shorty thought, incorrectly, that the German Shepard was the cause of the crying and immediately went “all Shakespearean” (do you see where this is going?) and barked, “Woof, wiif, oofffy aark aard!”
For those of you who do not speak dog language, that translates to, “This will not stand!”
That’s a weird coincidence, don’t you think?
Shorty shot like a rocket toward the German Shepard and attacked him in his back end. But Shorty was so small that the big dog didn’t know what was going on and thought maybe he had been bitten by a bee or backed into a rose bush and gotten stuck by the thorns.
Ting’s father, Albert, and I saw all this happen. It isn’t clear exactly what occurred next, but Albert and I saw Linda run over to Shorty and the German Shepard’s human friend run over to him. Albert and I looked at each other because neither of us have been so close to a circus performance before. It was a spectacular show.
Anyway, Linda scooped up Shorty and the German Shepard’s friend grabbed him. The poor German Shepard! I have never seen a dog so confused in my life.
Linda put Shorty down on the ground and guess what? She did it again! Shorty ran at the German Shepard at full speed and, well, you get the picture.
“Baaarrrrk, grrrwwwwwoooooowwwllll, aaark!” That’s dog-talk for “Let me at ‘em!”
Some people, and dogs, are a bit too excitable.
This time Linda grabbed Shorty on the run and tucked her up under her shoulder like a football. I ran across the field (OK, it was actually the driveway, but is seemed like a football field) and got the “hand off” when I passed in front of Linda. With Shorty now in my hands I scooted around a small bush and refused to put her on the ground. She really protested about that decision.
Nobody was hurt, of course, but there was a lot of confusion. It was very clear what happened. The German Shepard was merely doing his job making sure Ting was OK.
Shorty, on the other hand, jumped to a conclusion without fully evaluating the situation. She remembered how Linda protected her from bullies back at the Shelter and wanted to make sure that Ting never had to experience a bully. It was a good thought, even if it was mis-directed.
You would think that everyone would be mad at each other, right? Nope! That was not the case at all. Shorty and the German Shepard realized that they were both trying to do the right thing, so they were cool with that. I think they decided they should become some sort of protection team and keep the neighborhood safe. The humans all decided that it was far too hot and went looking for some iced tea.
Oh, and one other thing. Baby Ting and Shorty remained best pals. In fact, there is even another story about that, but it will have to wait for another time to be told.
That’s the story about how Shorty protected a pal.