Watch Dog

It's 2:30am. The side window of the bedroom is half open to let in fresh air on the warm night, and we are dead asleep.

Suddenly, Red starts barking a deep bark and growling out the half open window. James and I jump up out of bed and he peers out the window. "Grab my flashlight, quick!" he hisses, "There's someone out there."

Still half asleep and disorientated, I fumble around in the dark to find his police flashlight. My hands finally find the heavy handle, and I seize it and quickly pass it over to him.

"Go see if the DTE truck is sitting out front," he whispers. I run quietly to the front room, tripping over Red who is still running around growling, and peer through the blinds to see the big power company truck sitting in the middle of the road in front of our house. I feel a little better knowing it's probably a worker in our yard instead of a bad guy. But weren't we JUST talking about break-ins in the neighborhood a few hours ago??

I quickly sneak back into the bedroom, my heart thudding loudly, just in time to see James flick on his huge maglight, pointing it out into the side yard, and say in his loud police voice, "How's it going?". I faintly hear someone quickly say, "Detroit Edison!", and James reply, "Just checking."

James and I look at Red and then start with the praise and pets. "Go get him a treat!" James says. What a good boy to wake out of a dead sleep and alert us to someone prowling around in our yard! That DTE guy was lucky there was a wall and window between him and Red!