PROLOGUE

Visitors are very inconvenient now. I usually require a phone call alert, because five or more dogs-- no matter how gentle and loving-- bark dutifully, loudly and long when strangers approach. They are just doing their jobs.

So at the sound of a knock, woofing and growling alarms go off. There is much barking and gnashing of teeth, and my mother and I have to hustle to our places, like Red Cross Workers during a disaster drill.

Normally, Bridget willingly goes on command into my little computer office…I mean, our office (she thinks it’s hers, too). Nikki and Tara go into the master bedroom, further down the hall and more spacious, but they’re wary and experienced and it takes some clever herding and enticement methods getting them in there. If we’re out of treats at that time, it might be impossible.

Lilly, newest and youngest in the family, is obedient but slithers humbly and is intimated by any ruckus, so I have to pick her up and hustle her onto my bed, and close the door. Josie usually goes into the third bedroom; he’s very tiny but still offers a shrilling pipsqueak bark

Cumulatively, the barking can be a cacophony of ear-splitting, head banging tumult. At the sound of a visitor, we simultaneously discern who/what it is, then instantly do the Red Cross worker routine. Barking will continue but it’s muffled and safer, more polite.

This time, things went different. An insurance man, from Company X, had the audacity to solicit door to door in our mobile park. Greeting him at the door, I made excuses and explained why he wasn’t invited in. Thespian as some salesmen are, he kind of barged into the front door with great alacrity and began chattering how I’d qualified for a free year’s life insurance but had to sign paperwork. He invited himself to sit down on the chair.

Josie, our minute wiry-haired warrior, was left outside the room this time. No real harm. He acts tough, but is extremely harmless.

Mom can usually just hold him in her arms and he keeps quiet, enjoying the cuddle. The insurance man began his prattle; Josie wriggled free from my mother and began his little twirling dance, scurrying about the living room and kitchen.

I was signing the paperwork as Josie sauntered curiously towards the man, looking upwards with disdain.

  “He won’t bite, don’t worry,” I said.

  “I like dogs,” he said. “I’m not afraid.”

As the man chuckled and looked down, Josie lifted his hind leg, squirting the guy’s knee and shins with a yellow jet stream.

   Abruptly, the man jumped to his feet uttering expletives and hurriedly left our home.

I said Josie is harmless… not useless.