My mom's dog, punky, was a very sweet, loving dog.

She was an ESA dog but trained to be a service dog for PTSD before she lost her leg.

I had never seen her get aggressive with anyone in the entire 12 years she lived.

She never growled or nipped anyone, and she had no sense of smell, so she loved all animals

and people, a real gentle giant among our little terriers at 60 pounds.

What I'm getting at here was that her barking at something and being aggressive was so wildly

uncharacteristic that I only saw it once.

I, 11 at the time, was at home with my siblings.

My then stepdad is at work, and my mom ran up to the gas station to grab a pack of cigarettes.

It was only about a mile or two away from us.

For reference, we lived in a two bedroom trailer in the middle of the woods on a dead

end road at the time, and you had to really make an effort to get down our road, find our

house, navigate down our rickety driveway, and find the door.

I'm sitting at the computer, having a grand time watching YouTube videos.

When all of a sudden all of our dogs, two Boston terriers and one chihuahua perk up,

bark a few times, and start investigating down the hall.

My siblings were napping in the bedroom at the end of the hall at the time, so I figured

they just stirred and scared the dogs.

But then punkies sits up suddenly, stands up on the couch, and puffs her chest out.

Her ears are perked up, her first standing on end, and then she barks.

Loudly.

I mean the bark booms through the living room and echoes around.

...