Doggie Bear is a Very Good Boy

This episode happened several days ago. No real reason other than... well, no real reason at all why I haven't written about it yet, although I've wanted to since it happened. You all simply must know how wonderful a companion my dog, Bear, is.

The sun was just shy of setting on this particularly chilly but not bitter cold, clear January evening. My Wife and Son and I had finished helping my next-door neighbor feed his horses and he, 6-pack in saddle, was headed out for his nightly ride while we headed across the hayfield, short and dormant for the winter, towards home.

Barely into the grass off the gravel drive, a path between fields that's grown up 250 years and now supports more than a half-dozen minivans and SUVs per day, Bear launches off to greet our other neighbors, also out for an evening stroll. To be accurate, he rushes rather to greet their Irish Setter, Riley, unpredictable and spasmodic yet generally unthreatening, and only slightly dumber than a brick. They frolic as dogs, and I suppose people, should. My four-year-old son finds this abandon to be irresistable and [rhetoric?]why shouldn't he[/rhetoric?].

I don't know whether it's a Setter thing, or just a Riley thing, but three-and-a-half foot tall sprinting critters need to be chased, apparently. Riley, not surprisingly, easily overtakes my son, tags into him shoulder-to-shoulder, knocking him to the ground, before innocently galloping on, tail wagging. My son picks himself up laughing ecstatically, lost completely in the moment, and begins running again. We all smile and continue our neighborly smalltalk, not missing a beat, as this cross-species carnival unfolds before us. Except Bear.

He pauses, looks at me, and barks once. Then he looks at Riley, geared up for another chase, and barks. Once. At this point Riley is chasing my uncontrollably giggling son on another loop around us and POW! plows into him directly on his left shoulderblade, careening him to the ground. I expect my Son's giggling will stop and go immediately to see him. Bear, on the other hand, has simply had enough.

We had Bear before we had our Son. He is ever the elder one. He patiently put up with naps disrupted by tugs on his ears, grabs at his legs, and yes, bites from the two-legged creature we brought home one cold night a few years ago. They have a special relationship and it was this day that I realized how important my Son's well-being and safety were to him. Bear bee-lined at full speed directly towards Riley and hit him with his chest, barking ferociously all the while; he's a relatively small Black Lab, but they're a large breed and his 60 pounds was only 20 or so shy of Riley's. I wouldn't want that force-equals-mass-times-acceleration knocking into me and I've got 20 pounds on the two of them.

Riley was stunned. My Son was crying. As I comforted my boy and inspected his condition (he had hit his head on a piece of rose quartz the size of my fist - plentiful in these parts and ubiquitous in any plowed field - but shed no blood), Bear, with commanding barks, chest knocks, and a couple of instructional nips, moved Riley out to an approximately 40 foot perimeter around us into which he was under no circumstances allowed to enter.

This was all very troubling to Riley; his owner was sitting with us in the middle of this circle and try as he might, Bear was giving no quarter. You stay out here, troublemaker.

My Son was eased and cheered with a few calming words and a kiss to make it better. My neighbor apologized for her canine's behavior although it really wasn't necessary - dogs will be dogs and I don't think harm was ever intended. We began to walk the remainder of the way across the hayfield and Bear, usually impossible to keep from running ahead - on leash or not - lingered about 30 feet behind us all the way home... just in case.

Doggie Bear, you are a good boy. A very good boy.