Wally the Dachshund

Wally was a little brown and black short hair dachshund. He came from a long line of guard dachshunds. His great grandparents used to hunt badgers. Dachshunds were great badger hunters, because they were so short and could follow the badgers down into their dens.

There were no badgers where Wally lived, so Wally came up with a job of his very own. The job, that he would undertake, was to guard the territory which was the south side of Cherry Lane between the fire hydrant on Smith Street and the fence post on Tremain. Wally patrolled his territory several times a day, come rain or shine.

One day a big yellow truck pulled up in front of one of the houses in Wally’s territory. Wally went to check them out. There was a tall man and a boy unloading all sorts of things in the yard, covering up the grass and making a big mess. It was Wally’s job to warn them, especially the boy, who moved around a lot more than the man, to be careful and to warn the rest of the neighbourhood that they were there.

He barked to the left, he barked to the right, he barked up and he barked down. Whenever and wherever the boy moved, Wally followed right behind him barking out a warning. Wally really enjoyed his job, and put all he had into it.

The man and the boy kept on ignoring him, which for Wally meant that he had to bark all the more. It was getting to be the middle of the day, the boy was walking to the truck again, and Wally followed him barking out his warnings. Suddenly the boy stopped, turned around and barked one loud “Woof!” right at Wally. Wally jumped back. The boy scared him, and Wally worried that he might do something else so he ran away. Wally wasn’t sure if barking people would ever bite.