Wake-Up Call

sleep sliced by your tail

thrashing the floor. what are you?
watchdog? intruder?

Oh, how we love sleep! I wrote the above haiku for a friend's blog after our dog woke me up in the middle of the night with her pounding tail. Now I'm eating my words.

Last night my husband and I were awakened by our lab's growls. Later we heard a racket of screaming cats and barking dogs coming from down in our garden. Actually my husband woke up first. I'm a comatose sleeper, and the noise only sounded like static in my dreams. Peter shushed our dog several times, before finally getting up out of bed.

He slid open our screen door and peered over the balcony in time to see two, huge stray dogs carry off one of the cats that lives beneath our apartment building. The third stray dog followed closely behind.

Peter was sorry he hadn't minded our dog sooner. And I am sorry I take her for granted. This morning Peter not only found the cat dead, he found our car damaged. Apparently, the poor cat took refuge for a while under our car, and the dogs tried to get at her. Paw marks gouged the hood, the car's turn signal lights were broken and chewed, and ripped-out wires lay all over the ground. The mechanic couldn't believe it when he saw the fuel line chomped off and fur covering the engine.

If we'd paid attention to our dog sooner, we might have prevented the death and destruction. Instead, we chose to ignore her in favor of sleep. On a larger, spiritual scale, worse dangers threaten as we slumber. I pray I won't snuggle into a comfortable life and pull the covers over my head, when alarms and cries sound around me.

"Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober." -1Thessalonians 5:6

Our neighbors say those vicious stray dogs will return to our apartment for the other cats. You can be sure, this time when our watchdog sounds the alarm, we'll be ready.