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PEOPLE SOMETIMES KNEW more than good-dogs. Shadow reluctantly obeyed when September ignored his warning. When the door slammed shut, locking him outside away from her, he couldn’t reach September to protect her.
Hurling himself against the door didn’t work, and barking made him more upset. Neither his paws nor teeth could grapple open the handle. He should have disobeyed and kept September safe. He’d failed!
The stranger yelled. A loud, hurt, surprised sound that made Shadow more intent on reaching September. He wailed, redoubling his alarm barks and paw-thumps. No way inside through the door. Maybe another way? A window.
Shadow ran up and down the back yard next to the house. The only window was in the door itself, far above a dog’s paw-reach. He couldn’t see inside, but the sounds of September’s fear made his tummy hurt. He shook himself, closed his mouth, and took deep breaths. And looked around the enclosed square back yard.
He couldn’t get back inside the kitchen, or the attached garage. A tall wooden fence enclosed the rest of the yard. Shadow ran the circuit of the tiny space, sniffed the fence gate where last night’s intruder had entered. But it had no handle for him to grip.
Banging sounds erupted inside the garage, along with September’s yells. He returned to the door, whimpering with frustration. September, so near—only a narrow door between them—but no way to get through. He barked hard and long, so September knew he’d soon come to protect her. He just had to figure out how.
The stranger also spoke with hard, loud words. Shadow had smelled the bitey scent of gunfire when they first entered the house. Guns could reach out and bite September from a distance. He whimpered again.
Shadow had to do his job. He had to get out of the small yard to stop the bad man from hurting her.
He turned his attention to fencing on two sides. No stacked storage boxes offered an easy escape. He knew how to climb ladders, the talent had come in handy more than once, but nothing offered a good-dog a paws up in the deserted back yard. Wind drifted snow high against one side of the fence, though. With interest, Shadow trotted to the area, paw-testing to see if the elevated white stuff might support his weight. He sank up to his shoulders and had to drag himself out, shaking the white from his black fur.
Backing away from the fence for a running start, Shadow galloped as fast as he could, aiming at the corner. He leaped high, reaching with forepaws to hook over the top, and scrabbled with rear claws for purchase. Ice nullified any traction. Only one paw reached the top and he clung for seconds, before falling back to the ground. Shadow tried again. He flailed and failed. All the while, mysterious and frightening noises and cries arose inside the garage, spurring him to try harder, to succeed, to get out, out, OUT and rejoin September!
Panting both in frustration and fatigue, Shadow searched for another way out. While one fence wall held mounds of drifted snow, the wind had swept clean the ground at the foot of the adjacent fence. Flowerbeds, now empty of anything but shriveled dead vegetation, offered another option. He couldn’t go over the fence. But Shadow had claws for digging. September didn’t like him to dig without permission. But this time, he’d disobey. Sometimes dogs knew better than people. He could go under the fence, escape the back yard, reunite with September.
He quickly padded to the expanse of nearly bare ground, scratch-testing a few likely spots. Icy dirt meant frozen soil for the first paw-digs. But he remembered the rose garden at their house, how garden soil gave way to digging more readily than the sunbaked dirt in the fields. Shadow excavated with determination, digging slowly at first, then more quickly when he reached softer ground.
Noises inside grew louder, more scary. Shouts and banging made Shadow whimper, but he concentrated on the hole. Soon, he’d enlarged the space enough to force his head and shoulders into the gap. He dug deep, and then pulled the loosened soil backward in piles between his rear feet. Over and over again, grunting and panting, no longer wasting breath on barks, Shadow struggled to widen the hole and reach the bottom of the fence.
With excitement, Shadow’s paws dug below the wooden barrier. With whimpers of anticipation, he increased his tempo. He lay on his side, scooping with one paw, seeking to widen the gap beneath the wooden barrier. Another two paw-scoops of soil shuttled to one side would open the space for him to squeeze through.
Instead, he uncovered a wire and cement footing two feet under the soil. Impossible to breech.
Before he could regain his feet, the wall of the garage burst out toward him. A car crashed through. It barreled at Shadow, the rear eyelights glaring and angry.
Shadow flinched, backpedaled madly, tail pressed hard against the barrier of the fence. It bore down on him. He couldn’t escape.
