There were twelve coyotes in my yard. While we slept, they had formed a circle around us. When Poky woke me, I saw the coyotes watching us with their yellow eyes. They licked their lips.
“We’re hungry!” The leader drooled.
Still half asleep, I struggled to my feet. Our tummies were full, but we were still cold and weak from hunger. “We have no more food,” I said. “You’ve eaten it all.”
“So?” one scoffed. “You guys look pretty tasty to us.”
“Yeah,” another added. “I bet that little one there—the one with the big ears and long tail—I bet he’s downright yummy.”
They all laughed. It was an evil-sounding laugh. Yellow eyes shining, white fangs glowing in the night, they took a step closer.
“Get ’em, Sweetie!” Poky whispered.
I leaned close to his floppy ear. “Let’s try, just once more, to be friends.”
Poky rolled his soft brown eyes.
I turned to face the coyotes. “If you eat us,” I reasoned, “there will be no more food. Without us, our masters will quit filling the bowls. Then you will have nothing. Nothing at all.”
“We’re hungry, now.”
The circle of coyotes tightened.
“That big one ought to feed six or seven of us,” one coyote yapped.
“I want a leg,” another chuckled.
“I want his guts,” yapped another.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to bite. But I was not a coward. I took a brave step toward the coyotes. “Take me,” I said, “but please don’t eat my friends.”
The big coyote, who always seemed to do most of the talking, grinned. “That’s what we’re planning to do.”
“Yeah,” another coyote snickered. “And when we get through with you, we’ll eat those other scrawny mutts, too.”
They all laughed and took another step closer.
Red backed his rump against me. He bared his teeth and growled. “There are some animals you just can’t reason with. We’ve either got to fight or die.”
Poky leaned against my leg from the other direction. “Ready to get ’em, Sweetie?”
“I’m ready,” I whispered.
I felt the hair ridge-up along my back. I bared my teeth. Growled.
Only it had been so long since I’d growled that just a little “fruff” came out.
I took a deep breath so I could bark at the mean coyotes.
Only it had been so long since I’d barked that all I said was “yap.”
The coyotes howled and laughed. One jumped in and nipped me on the leg. It hurt. I tried to bite him back. Only it had been so long since I’d bitten, my jaws didn’t open. My cheeks just puffed in and out, making a little popping sound.
The leader of the coyotes jumped on Red. The Irish setter fought bravely, but in no time at all, two other coyotes had helped the leader knock him down. One chomped down hard on Red’s leg.
Poky fought and snapped, but he wasn’t very big. Two coyotes grabbed him. One holding each of Poky’s hind legs, they stretched him out and started dragging him off across the yard.