Gibby does what all dogs do, she barks at squirrels, other dogs, people walking in our neighbourhood. My husband gets angry with her and tells her to stop but I always tell him that she’s only doing what a dog is supposed to do – warn us of others on our property. I usually then remind him that Gibby was the one who alerted us to a neighbourhood fire in the middle of the night three years ago and if she didn’t bark, we wouldn’t know about someone who shouldn’t be in our yard or when the mail gets here or when those annoying door-to-door energy sales people are in the hood.
One afternoon something made Gibby look up. Likely it was a bird she was chasing out of her space. Stupid bird. Gibby looked up and found a whole new space to patrol. Birds, planes and helicopters are now forbidden to enter Gibby’s space. She runs from one end of the yard to the other barking ferociously, protecting us from these overhead threats. Luckily for us, helicopters fly over Niagara many times each day and Gibby never fails to alert us to their presence. Like we could miss them. But she believes she’s doing her job and she always returns to us after raising the alarm for a ‘good girl’ and scratch behind the ear. And we can rest assured that nothing will ever invade Gibby’s air space without her sounding the doggy alarm.