At least from Murph’s point of view. Anything that looks out of the ordinary or is otherwise strange and unfamiliar to him is a monster. (A word he knows courtesy of his Aunt Karen. That’s what she says when something catches Tucker’s eye on a walk and startles him.)
The Making of a Monster
Of course there aren’t really monsters about. There are just things that sometimes appear scary to Murphy.
An overturned trash can that wasn’t there on a previous walk. A tangled hose left askew on a lawn. A piece of trash, like some of the black landscape liners we see marking off to-be-built-on lots around here, crumpled up in a place where there was nothing before. Playground toys have even been known to be monster-like.
The Reactions
I always know when Murph’s spotted a monster. He’ll stop (or slow way down), the hair on his back rises, and he pins his ears back.
Sometimes he barks, sometimes he’ll lower his body and slink with caution towards the monster. Sometimes he approaches cautiously first, then barks right before he gets to the monster. I guess he’s hoping to sneak up on it and scare it right back!
Some Monsters We’ve Met
The first monster I remember was right after we got him, when he was still a puppy. It was a really windy day and Murph spotted a plastic bag, like from a grocery store, blowing around outside. He barked up a storm until it finally blew out of sight down the street.
The one that tickled me most was a hippo/dinosaur (I’m not sure which it was) kind of playground toy for kids to climb on at a park. That was when we came house hunting to Nashville. I took Murph to a park one afternoon and he was so busy sniffing for squirrels he wasn’t paying attention to much else. He lifted his nose when we got to the playground, though, spotted the hippo/dino thing and flipped out. He ran towards it barking, but then tucked tail and ran from it, still barking over his shoulder. He kept a suspicious eye on it the rest of the walk.
One that freaked both him and I out was a giant snake skin we spotted in the grass at another park. It had to be six feet long, and two or three inches wide. Whatever snake shed it was huge. Murph was very careful when he went to check it out (no barking this time), but when he sniffed it he gave me a worried look. It was almost as if he was saying, “I hope we don’t run into the thing that came off of, mom.”
My thoughts exactly!
Question to Readers
How perceptive is your dog? Does he or she spot monsters too?
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