My dog has never been fond of delivery trucks. She has never been a big fan of the United States Postal Service and their little white trucks. She has had a contentious relationship with the FedEx truck and the Amazon vans as well. But nothing quite gets under her skin quite like the worst of the species in Lucy’s mind—the dreaded brown UPS truck.
To be fair, as Lucy has aged she has become something of a grumpus when it comes to any strange vehicle or pedestrian who commits the unforgivable sin of appearing on the road in front of our house. She sees it as her duty to warn us of the potential grave danger presented to us by the mere presence of someone taking their dogs for walks on her street. Lucy fails to see the irony in her absurd stance on dog walkers, since one of her favorite things in life is when she goes for a walk throughout the neighborhood with me. But somehow when other dogs do it, its as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse have been unleashed.
However, her annoyance with delivery drivers started in earnest several Christmas seasons ago during that COVID year when everybody did 100% of their Christmas shopping online, which caused delivery driver traffic in our neighborhood to increase 1000% year over year. Lucy has never fully recovered.
I bring this up because of something fascinating that happened this afternoon around 3:30 in the afternoon. I got home from the office and as is my custom sat down in my recliner upstairs where Lucy quickly curled up in a spot right next to the chair. In ten short minutes she was literally snoring. Out like a light. Then just a few minutes later I heard a low growl from her. I glanced down at her. She was still sound asleep, dead to the world. Then a bit later another low growl, this one a bit longer. Again I looked down at her. Not even the slightest movement. Then she let out one of her patented soft barks. This is when she half growls/half darks which comes out sounding very much like someone saying harrumph. At this point it occurred to me that she was probably dreaming and her dream involved a delivery truck of some sort. But then suddenly she lifted her head with droopy, sleepy eyes and let out another low growl and another harrumph. At this point she began the long tortured process of unwinding herself out of her sleep posture onto all four paws whereupon she uncorked a vicious full body shake and a forceful bark and out of the room she bolted, around the corner down the hall until she reached the Palladian window at the front upstairs of the house overlooking the street. It was only then that I heard the distinctive grinding of gears and high pitched whine of the UPS truck which was still two streets away!!!
Some of you may doubt this detail. It seems like an embellishment. It couldn’t be possible for a sleeping dog to sense the presence of a delivery truck which had barely turned off Pump Road into our neighborhood, at least 500 yards away. But as I live and breathe, Miss Lucy is nothing if not diligent when it comes to protecting her humans from the UPS man, this despite the fact that in his approximately 500 previous deliveries to this address managed to do so with exactly zero loss of life or property damage. These facts mean nothing to Lucy. She knows the hidden agenda of all men and women in uniforms who drive loud vans and trucks and they are up to no good. There is no way in hell she is letting one of these people do us any harm. Not on her watch!
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