My Protector (1)

This story is about my dog, Bo. He died 5 years ago. Two months after his death, I had my experience.

Bo was a Christmas present to me from my mother. When I got him, I had to bottle feed him. He was such a tiny thing! As he grew, he became very protective of me and would scare off anyone who tried to hurt me.

When I was 16, we moved to a rural part of southern Georgia. Behind our small farm house was a soy bean field. My bedroom windows faced a little road that wound around the field. It was early spring and our landlord had hired a few men to dispose of the deer who were eating his crop.

During the hot nights, I would move my bed beside my windows and leave them open to allow the cool air to come in. Bo, as always, slept outside my room under the windows to watch over the yard. He would chase anything that got too close.

One night, my family and I were sitting in the living room when we heard Bo barking. He had cornered a deer near our barn and was running back and forth in front of it. Suddenly, the deer bolted to the right and ran for the road. Bo followed. What happened next is something I'll never forget. A car swerved to miss hitting the deer and instead hit Bo. There was nothing we could do to save him. He had to be put to sleep. I was devastated! I cried for days after that.

Two months after this happened, I was asleep in my room. As usual, I had my bed pushed up against my windows for the cool air of the night. At about 1:30 that morning, I awoke to the sound of growling and soft barking under my windows. It was Bo! My back was to the windows, so I couldn't see him, but I knew it was him. As I laid there listening, the growling got louder and scarier. He was obviously giving something a warning. I turned around to see what was going on only to see a man watching me! He was sitting in an old beat up truck watching me through binoculars! At this time, Bo started barking loudly and it sounded like he was running towards the truck. I started screaming and my mom ran into the room. By the time I could tell her what had happened, the man was gone.

To this day, I've always believed that Bo came to protect me that night because he knew that man could hurt me. I'll never forget him or that night.

Thank you for reading my story. I hope you enjoyed it.