You know, I find life pretty confusing. Every day I run into all kinds of things that I don’t understand : aggressive driving, real imitation bacon bits, someone buying a hot dog at the Sheetz station even though you can tell it’s been going around and around on the thing that goes around for hours, possibly even days. And I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent life form. At least, I can ask questions, or look into things a little more. But imagine how confusing modern life must be if you are a dog. Especially a dog like Winston – over a thousand years of breeding to perfect the instinct to protect people….and then he meets a garage door opener....

Now, if you’re just coming by here for information about what it’s like to live with a mastiff, please don’t get the idea that Winston is in any way “an outdoor dog”. But he IS an indoor dog who absolutely loves to bask in the sun. So, if we are there to keep an eye on him, we’ll put him out on his tie out. He can bask on the warm black top driveway then go over into the shade of the trees in the front yard. He can watch the trash men, the landscapers any of our neighbors may have hired, or any of our neighbors who are out. Often he gets up and goes to the end of his tie out and sits down and thumps his tail hopefully at a workman or passer-by trying to entice them to come pet him. But people in this neighborhood are not as brave as the folks on Main St. Still he’s not discouraged.

The truth is that the tie out is only there for the sake of the neighbors, who might not like the idea that there’s a 200lb dog who could roam the neighborhood at will. We do have leash laws in the County. But Winston has absolutely no desire to wander, and no matter where we have lived, he has shown zero desire to ever lose sight of his front door. So he goes out, basks, naps, and watches the world go by serenely every morning that it’s sunny.

Yesterday morning I heard him bark. This was unusual in and of itself, because there is very little that Winston ever barks at. Cats, rabbits, squirrels, mailmen, delivery drivers – nothing bothers him. This bark wasn’t even his occasional “hey somebody’s here” warning. This was his deep, full “I’m-trying-to-intimidate-you-because-I-am-a-big-dog” bark. So I got up to see what the matter was.

All I could see, looking in the same direction where he was staring intently, was Mrs. L’s garage door slowly closing. Mrs. L is an elderly neighbor. She seems like a nice lady, but she doesn’t enjoy very good health. She has to use a walker to get around, and almost every morning, she comes out to get her newspaper, moving slowly and carefully. Winston has seen her a dozen times. He always seems to be watching, as if ready to sound the alarm if she should fall. Or maybe I just watch her that way, somewhat breathlessly. Because one IS sort of in suspense every morning to see if she is going to make it. Once she gets the paper, she usually rests for a minute on a chair inside her garage, and she most often keeps the garage door up.

But, she must have changed her routine. Maybe she was cold. Maybe she just got the remote for the garage door fixed. But what could be worrying Winston so much? Had someone been bothering Mrs. L? Was there someone lurking in the bushes? Winston turned to me with an anxious confused look. I got down on my knees to look out on the scene at Winston’s eye level just as the garage door slowly closed over Mrs. L’s feet.

“Hhhrrrrmmm-hmmmm” Winston sort of whined, and then looked at me mournfully. Was he upset that Mrs. L hadn’t come over to pet him? She never has before. And, really, if I was an 80 year old lady on a walker I wouldn’t either!

“Winston, what’s wrong?” I asked. And then it dawned on me. Winston had never seen an automatic garage door opener in action before. When Mrs. L. came out, the garage door was up, and he had seen that part of her routine before. But what must it have looked like to the dog as the door slowly came down behind her?

I’m pretty sure that Winston thought that Mrs. L was being eaten by her garage! And, true to his chivalric nature, Winston was doing his best to scare it off!

“Oh, Winston, it’s all right!” I assured him, “Really, it is. You’ll see. She’ll be back tomorrow.” He looked sort of doubtfully at me, as if he wanted to believe in the confidence and cheerfulness of my voice, but still pretty darn sure the garage across the street had just eaten an innocent old lady. He must have decided there was nothing he could do about it, because, after having his ears scratched he went to lay down under a shade tree.

Today, I put him out at just about the same time. And, shortly, the garage door across the street opened, and out hobbled Mrs. L. Winston leapt to his feet and rushed to the end of his tie out, sniffing the air. Yes, yes, it was Mrs. L! She was safe, spit out by the savage garage! He didn’t make a sound, but wagged his tail joyfully, then went back up to the sidewalk to watch what would happen next. This time, as the garage door closed, I saw him tilt his head one way then the other, the way he does when he’s struggling to understand something. But he didn’t bark.

I don’t know what he thinks now. In fact, I doubt I could imagine it. But, at least, for Winston, the threat board is clear. I hope he thinks that he scared that old garage into giving Mrs. L safe passage. I hope that in his dreams he’s Super-Dog, and he can fly, and protect the weak and weary all over the world.