This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Winks

There I was this morning, trying to catch those last few winks after Farmer H departed for work, when out on the porch there arose such a ruckus I sprang out of bed to see what had assailed us.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

My sweet, sweet Juno had been going all primate-crap with her fierce high-pitched bark. Right outside the french doors that lead from my side of the bed out onto the porch. Not that I'm French, or need you to pardon mine, or anything. From the panic in her woof, I thought surely a marauder such as a wolverine or honey badger (DON'T CARE!) had crept up on her while she was enjoying her breakfast in the form of a full flat round metal pan that echoes each nugget of dry dogfood dispensed by Farmer H each morning. Or even worse, maybe it was that killer poodle from across the road!

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The only other creature on the back porch with Juno was poor dimwitted Ann, the black german shepherd/lab mix. She was on her own side of the big metal garbage can full of the bag of dry dog food from which Farmer H dispenses their meal each morning. That can acts as a divider. Even so, Juno growls throughout her feeding time like Ann is going to barrel through that can and snatch her breakfast.

Most of the time, these two mutts have an uneasy truce. They run alongside Farmer H in the Gator as he patrols the grounds. They wrestle on the front porch with snapping jaws grabbing hopefully not-snapping legs. But they will not share a house in the winter, and Juno does not want Ann getting a pat, even with a free non-dominant hand while she herself is being stroked as the official object of affection.

Juno's spoiled brattiness insecurities no doubt stem from her early days, when she was abandoned prior to the age of proper weaning, and left to fend for herself on the front porch of my mom's house. Where she was ignored and avoided, her tiny ribs sticking to each other, as Mom let her go hungry, and entered and exited from the side door, thinking Juno would move on to another house if she received no food or kindness.

Even after the #1 son scammed me into bringing sweet, sweet Juno home to raise as our own, she had issues with the big dogs. We had our first dog then, too. Old Grizzly, the half lab/half beagle. He and Ann would creep up to watch and sniff while my sweet, sweet Juno, a mere slip of a pup, licked her half can of Puppy Chicken off a paper plate. She knew she was the center of attention, too. She growled like a guard dog while choking down that meal.

I do not plan to tell Farmer H how this brouhaha interrupted my beauty sleep. He's proud enough of flinging those dry dogfood pellets out of a plastic pitcher into the flat metal pan like so many golf balls flung out of a jai alai cesta at a metal storage shed.