The Big Dog

In a large house in a small town behind tall locked gates there lived a big Alsatian dog. He was a placid, slow-moving and kind-eyed dog. He barked seldom and when he did his bark was deep and loud. He guarded his master’s house at night and the thieves in the town respected his size enough to not try and steal from that particular house.

He was only troubled by two things. Street dogs who in their freedom would stand outside his gate and bark and a group of school going children who would taunt him on their way to and from school. He ignored both of these as minor irritations. This of course only made the children and street dogs more courageous and louder and noisier. The children would stand outside the gate and shout at him and sing silly rhymes they would make up. Sometimes the children getting no response from the big dog tossed pebbles at him to make him angry. At such times he would get up and go and lie down somewhere at the back of the house where the children could not see him and he couldn’t see them.

This was the state of affairs when an out of town thief who did not know about the Alsatian tried to get into the house. This was very early in the morning and the Alsatian was sleeping near the gate when he woke up to some noise. To his surprise he saw a man climbing up a ladder towards the open window of his master’s bedroom. The Alsatian barked like he had never done in his life and ran towards the thief. The thief when he heard the Alsatian and saw his size promptly fell off the ladder in fright. He got up and ran towards the garden wall over which he had come. The Alsatian was faster and managed to bite the thief in several places before he hit the big dog on the head with a stick and escaped over the wall.

So when the morning street dogs came to bark at him the big dog already had a headache and was not in a good mood. And so this is what the children going to school who turned into the street where the big dog lived saw from a distance-

The big dog got up slowly walked up to the gate and stood looking at the street dogs outside the gate. This was the first time he had paid them any attention and they barked even louder at him. The big dog effortlessly jumped up and over the gate, bit some three or four of the street dogs and frightened all of them so that they ran off with yelps with their tails between their legs. Then with the same ease he jumped back over the gate into his usual place and turned twice and lay down.

The children turned back and were late reaching school that day. From the next day onwards, they went by a longer route avoiding the lane in which the big dog lived and left home earlier to reach school on time. The street dogs stopped bothering the Alsatian and were very quiet and respectful around his house. The big Alsatian lived in peace thereafter.