Oscar the Brave

 

This is Oscar the Brave, 

... fearless guardian dog who protects his flock of three chickens diligently, as anyone who has walked, biked, driven, or scootered past our back gate will attest. The neighbours will also verify his conscientious approach to his work, which is often most evident in the middle of the night (usually as soon as Wallsy and I have gone to bed), as he wards off foxes, rats, and any other passing wildlife, real or imagined, with his determined barking. So, with this background knowledge, you would be justified in asking what Oscar is doing inside the house mid-afternoon, the chickens left to fend for themselves outdoors?

The answer is, Oscar the Brave is afraid of thunderstorms. At the first rumble, all bets are off, the chickens are abandoned, and Oscar puts his rather strong snout to good use, battering on the back door, to be let inside with the humans. Now, if you were to ask him, he would probably feign a need to protect his people by sitting on our feet as the storms rage, but believe me, this is not about us at all. Today’s window-rattling thunder has seen him follow me from room to room and even forget himself and run up the hallway on several occasions as the windows have threatened to become dislodged.

So here we are, Oscar the Brave and I, candles alight against the stormy gloom in the absence of power, me on the couch, he on my feet. I wonder how long it will be before I lose all feeling in my feet with 48kg of Maremma firmly sitting on them, but hey, I’ve got nowhere else to be, and nothing else I can do until power is restored, one of the pitfalls of an all-electric house, so I will just sit here and let him believe he is bravely protecting me from the storm and hope the chickens are ok out there.