The perpetual war, always won!

[Stinky The Clown]

We run two businesses from our home, Sparkly's and mine.

Fedex and UPS are services we both use for both sending and receiving.

Our Border Collie, Little, has always been our Great Protector. No matter how many assaults those guys coming out of their big, noisy trucks might attempt, she always prevailed.

Then our GSD, Big, joined us. She seemed capable of hearing those trucks a mile away. She could also hear that small red, white, and blue truck that stopped every day at the small black box at the end of the driveway. She'd start the caterwauling and Little would join when the invader was within sight.

Of course, when the weather is nice and we're outside most of the day, working on the deck, the Fedex guy, with that sack of treats on his belt, is their best friend, yessiree, as he comes around the back to visit for a minute and give them a skritch behind the ear.

Now we have a third, Itty Bit the Shih-tzu. She has no clue what the ruckus is all about, but cats-be-damned she's all over it. From the outside, one can see three heads through our all glass storm door, barking and slobbering.

Sure enough, the invader approaches, pauses for a second, then retreats on a run.

Heads shake proudly. Barking subsides. There is an occasional beg for a treat.

They did it again. They repelled the invader. They won again their perpetual war.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. You are so lucky to have such a wonderful brigade of brave souls to protect you...

I LOVE the fact that the Fedex guy comes armed with treats for your furbabies.

[japple]

2. The UPS and FedEx drivers both have dog treats. My dog always

takes them to bury in the garden. She likes them cold and moldy, with a fine coating of dirt.

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. Klyde goes to work with me and he too hears the UPS...

truck coming. He patiently sits by the door until the driver gets to my shop. I open the door and he runs up into the truck and the driver gives him a treat. This is a big deal to me because less than 2 months ago he used to act like Cujo when the truck pulled up. Now it's one of the days highlights.

[get the red out]

4. Our 8 month old pup started "protecting"

Our puppy started getting protective of the house a couple of months ago. If she hears a sound outside that she isn't used to she gets all puffed up and bellows. It's really funny coming out of a slender, 26 lb., Border Collie mix, except for in the middle of the night. Last night she started up and we decided to just ignore her and let her calm back down and not reinforce it, well nothing doing, she came UPSTAIRS to right in front of our bedroom and started up. I got up and she wouldn't move to come into our room so I went downstairs with her and opened the back door, where I saw nothing. Evidently my checking satisfied her because she came back to our room and immediately went to sleep beside the bed. The little gal is getting a heck of a bark on her, fortunately she is generally pretty quiet.

We are not displeased that she has decided that she should alert, even though we will have some false alarms (hopefully ALL false alarms). We did have someone try to break into our house in the middle of the night a few years back, scared us terribly, fortunately it was just a college kid blind drunk on homecoming weekend that thought he was at his buddy's door at the apartments across the street, but he had torn our back gate off the hinges and was beating on the sliding glass door before we realized someone was outside and called the police.