They Protect Their Children
I grew up in dairy country in upstate New York. The nearest neighbor was a farmer half a mile away. Dad had dreamed of raising German shepherds, and this was a place his dreams could come true. That is how I came to grow up with more four-footed than two-footed friends. My parents always claimed they raised the shepherds and the shepherds raised my sister, Virginia, and me.
Mom and Dad built a huge rambling house that fit sunny California a great deal better than it did an upstate New York winter. They were some of the original do-it-yourselfers simply because they couldn’t afford to hire the work done. The land dropped a full story in the width of the driveway, and retaining walls prevented the rocks and dirt we called a lawn from reclaiming the space for cars.
Mom told me on repeated occasions that I was not a napping kind of child. I got up in the morning and went full tilt until she corralled me and put me to bed—multiple times. One of the rare exceptions to that rule was the day I welcomed Mounty into our home.
Mounty was a large, two-year-old, black-and-tan grandson of early television’s famous dog Rin Tin Tin. Dad had bought him to be the foundation stud for a family kennel. My parents had talked in general terms about Dad’s big dream of having a kennel, and Mom hadn’t said anything against the idea. But she actually was afraid of dogs—especially big dogs.
At the time Dad surprised Mom and brought Mounty home, Mom still hadn’t gotten around to telling Dad about her fear. Dad ushered the dog into the kitchen and admonished Mom that the change in family had disoriented Mounty and she shouldn’t scare him. Then Dad left for work. My father never realized Mom’s silence was due to being scared speechless.
The groceries she’d just purchased littered the counter in front of her, and she spied the ham she’d been about to refrigerate. Grabbing a knife, she hacked off a generous chunk and tossed it to Mounty. He caught it in midair, never moving his feet. His inch-long teeth snapped shut with a clunk. A couple of moist smacks and the meat disappeared.
Theorizing a well-fed dog was less likely to make a meal of the closest human, Mom proceeded to feed the dog the whole ham, chunk by chunk. As Mounty watched her with big, sorrowful brown eyes, the ham dwindled piece by piece until only the bone was left. Tossing it with all the skill learned in her softball days, Mom then darted for the living room. Mounty caught the bone with the grace of an outfielder collecting an easy fly ball and lay down to gnaw on his treasure.
That’s when I entered the picture. Standing up, I was eyeball to eyeball with Mounty as he lay down. He apparently looked like a big, soft pillow, so I toddled over and curled up to take a nap on this fur-covered cushion. Mounty wrapped around me, a living blanket, and didn’t budge.
Mom said she tried to pick me up only to have her hands firmly batted away by a big black nose. The look in the dog’s eyes was clear. I was not to be touched. I was his child to protect. Mom hovered there for hours while the sun slowly set and I slumbered peacefully.
Dad’s return woke me, and I wandered away to play, Mounty a watchful two steps behind. Just before he followed me from the room, Mounty picked up his bone and politely dropped it on Mom’s feet while slowly wagging his tail. Dad howled with laughter when Mom confessed why we were going to have a week of meatless dinners.
Sig, Signet, and Electra soon followed Mounty. Wherever I played, a protective circle of German shepherds surrounded me. When the neighbor’s barn burned and every structure for miles around became infested with bold, aggressive rats, I was safe. Dad looked out the window one day and saw a rat coming across the lawn toward me as I played in the grass. He grabbed a machete and ran for the door. He got outside just in time to see Sig grab the rodent’s tail and flip it into the air, snapping its back.
When I was probably three years old, a pile of sand was delivered and dumped in the middle of the driveway to be mixed with cement and turned into a patio behind the house. Mom and Dad laboriously mixed batch after batch in a wheelbarrow while, armed with spoons and sifters, I spent hours making mud pies and getting thoroughly coated with dirt. Engrossed in my task of sifting, I never noticed the big fuel truck backing up in the driveway. The huge tanker arrived once a year in the fall and deposited a thousand gallons of fuel oil for the winter.
Backing up a vehicle that size takes a special skill set, and the drivers can’t see everything behind them. Certainly this driver didn’t see me, a tiny girl camouflaged by a liberal layer of sand, playing in his path. The dogs saw him. Barking furiously they ran toward the truck, crowding and biting the wheels in an attempt to herd the danger away. The truck kept moving toward me. The dogs held their ground, refusing to move as the tires rubbed their sides and began dragging them down to be crushed.
The driver might not have seen me, but there was no missing four very large, noisy German shepherds. He stopped the truck and, with a foolish level of bravery, attempted to step out and shoo the dogs away. He was a target they could sink their teeth into. If he’d been a split second slower slamming the cab door, they’d have been successful. The brief moment outside the truck allowed him to see just what the dogs guarded. He leaned on the truck horn until my parents came running to collect me and the dogs.
The dogs hated the big yellow school bus. It came with alarming regularity, swallowed up their children, and disappeared for hours. Thankfully, it returned us unharmed each afternoon. It required a significant amount of sniffing of clothes, faces, and hair to be sure. After several minutes, the afternoon blockade of furry bodies would release us to play.
Virginia had getting out the door without a dog in attendance down to a science. But I was a little kindergartner, outweighed by all of my fur-coated guardians, and I had more trouble.
We were running late one day and the bus driver blew the horn, warning us to hurry. My sister grabbed her lunch bag. “I’ll go hold the bus, you hurry up.”
She dashed out the door. I swung the heavy wooden portal shut. Sig got her nose in the way, preventing it from closing tightly, but it slowed her enough for me to slam the screen door. I took off at a run and leaped aboard only to feel the brush of barreling, fur-coated bodies slide past and block my path. Sig stopped and leaned, gently forcing me to retreat. I could see Electra applying the same tactics to my sister while Signet went to work on the child in the seat farthest back.
I turned to Mr. Galloway, the driver, for help. After all, Mom and Dad could always make the dogs obey. He sat statue-still, sweat streaming down his face and with an expression that made me think he had a stomachache. Mounty sat at his elbow, a deep rumbling growl rolling up from his chest. If Mr. Galloway moved, Mounty’s lips curled back, exposing his rather ominous, ivory grin.
When in doubt, ask big sister. “What do we do?”
“I guess we get off,” Virginia said. “The dogs always follow us.”
I turned and swiftly hopped down the steps, my sister close behind. The dogs stayed on the bus. Mounty’s growls got louder.
Virginia pointed toward the house. “Go get Mom and Dad.”
One of our parents must have noticed the bus still sitting at the end of the driveway because they met me halfway. Dad climbed in and sternly ordered the dogs out. They ducked their heads, tucked back their ears, and looked up at him through their long spiky lashes, but they didn’t move. He ran his fingers through his hair and watched in silence.
Thankfully Mounty had stopped growling, but Mr. Galloway didn’t move unless you counted the beads of perspiration making salt trails on his face. Dad noticed the female dogs leaning on the children the way they leaned to steer my sister and me away from anything they considered dangerous.
“Okay, kids, the dogs think you’re in danger and they want you off the bus. Can you please stand up and step outside?”
Farm kids take things in stride, and being hijacked and made late to school by a pack of dogs entertained the group. Swiftly, everyone climbed down the stairs and out into the morning sunshine. Signet, Electra, and Sig brought up the rear and watched for stragglers. Once off they circled the group of children, keeping everyone together. Mounty was the last to leave. He gave one last look at Mr. Galloway, licked his chops, and pranced down the steps. Mr. Galloway almost closed the door on the dog’s tail.
Everyone had to walk to the house before we could get the dogs inside and convince the bus driver he could safely open the door and load up his passengers again. Years later when my sister had graduated and I was in seventh grade, the bus doors remained tightly closed whenever a dog was in sight.
One thing the dogs couldn’t protect me from was germs. I had a bad bout of pneumonia at the age of four, and that’s when my parents made the house rule that a shepherd had to sleep in my room.
Heat radiated off my skin in waves, and I struggled to kick off the warm cover surrounding me. Eyes closed, I rubbed the satin binding of the blanket. The softness usually helped me sleep. My lungs burned like I had run a really long way on a hot summer day. I was too tired to open my eyes. It didn’t matter. Dad held and rocked me, his soft, deep voice a thread of safety holding back the hurt. I opened my eyes a crack, but light from the rising sun made me squish them closed. Mounty licked the toes I’d managed to squirm beyond a fold in the blanket.
“How is she?” Mom asked.
“About the same. If the fever doesn’t break by tonight, we’re going to have to take her to the hospital.”
“How are we going to pay the bill? It took us years to pay off the last time she was there with pneumonia.”
“We’ll find a way. We really don’t have a choice, do we?”
I could hear the sound of Mom’s dress rubbing against her slip. A wave of her perfume enveloped me and then I felt her lips brush my cheek.
Dad sighed and shifted in the rocker. “You better go to work. They’re not going to let you have any more time off, and we may need the money. I’ll call in today.”
The steady rhythm of the rocker returned. It made it easier to breathe.
“The roads are icy,” he said. “Take your time.”
Mom’s perfume faded. The kitchen door closed in the distance. Silence except for the creak of the rocker. Sleep.
“Hey, sweetie. Take a sip of this.”
I opened my eyes. The setting sun turned the room shades of orange, but with more red than the juice in the glass Dad held to my lips. The cold, acid taste cut through the cottony tin flavor in my mouth. It burned my sore throat and exploded in my stomach. I sat up coughing and fought the urge to return the juice. Then the other coughing started. Deep in my chest, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t breathe but still I coughed. Dad shifted me to his shoulder and paced the room, gently patting my back and murmuring words I didn’t have the energy to understand.
Gradually the coughing stopped. Dad continued to pace across the room, back and forth. I could hear Mounty’s nails clicking on the tile floor. He walked beside Dad, step for step, turn and walk. His nose found my foot again and licked.
“Tell me about Sig and the stranger.” My voice sounded different but I knew I’d spoken the words.
“You were there, and it was only a few months ago.” Dad’s voice rumbled under my ear.
“Tell me.”
Dad sighed, but it was the smile kind of sigh. “The dogs are your guardians. They won’t let anyone near you. They know their job is to keep you safe, and they don’t trust any grown-ups but Mom and me.”
Dad shifted me to his other shoulder. “A strange man came to the house and tried to give you candy. Mounty pushed you out of the way and barked and growled and snarled until the man was backed up against the retaining wall. The wall was taller than the man, and Mounty had his attention. He didn’t see Sig running along the top of the wall ready to pounce down on him. He would have been in big trouble if I hadn’t called her.”
The story made me giggle, like always. I could hear Mounty—click, click, click—as his nails tapped the floor with each step. A dog was near, I was safe. Shivers claimed me and I snuggled inside the blanket. Dad returned to the rocker and I heard Mounty thump to the floor and sigh. My eyes drifted shut. It still hurt to breathe, but sleep came.
“How is she?” A wave of perfume touched my nose.
“Better, the fever’s down and she’s been sleeping most of the day.”
“You must be exhausted. With the door closed, her room is the warmest in the house and no drafts. Let’s put her to bed and get some sleep. It’s been a long three days and we’re both going to have to go to work tomorrow or we’ll lose our jobs.”
“If she’s better, maybe it’ll be okay to leave her with her sister.”
I felt myself being carried up the stairs and tucked into bed. Mounty stayed beside my bed on the floor. I heard the door close and drifted back to sleep.
My skin was on fire. I hurt so badly and I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned and I felt my arms thrash and my body jerk. A cold nose poked my back, a paw held me in place, and a tongue licked my face. What was wrong with Mounty? His tongue was never cold. The paw and the nose disappeared and I fought for more air. Vaguely I knew a loud banging kept happening, like someone throwing a boulder against the door to my room. Wood shattered. Cool air washed my skin, blessed relief. Mom’s hand pressed against my forehead. Had she been outside? Her hand was so cold.
“Bob, come quick! The fever’s back. She’s going into convulsions.”
I don’t remember what happened after that.
———
The sun crept through my bedroom window. I opened my eyes to a big black nose and sad German shepherd eyes. “Is Mounty okay? His tongue was cold.”
Dad pulled the blanket up and tucked it under my chin. His hand gave Mounty a quick pat as he withdrew it. “He’s fine. He’s probably bruised from breaking down your door, but he doesn’t seem to notice.”
“He broke down my door?”
“He realized you were really sick and needed your mom and me. He broke down your bedroom door to come get us. He saved your life.”
“That’s what German shepherds do, Dad,” I said. “They protect their kids.”