Zombie Attack Thwarted By Operatic Pet

It's the ungodly hour of 5am and right now I'm doing battle with my operatic pet, Fado the Portuguese Water Dog, and token animal for When You Were 5. He's slumped up against the door to our bedroom, where Wifey still slumbers, and is making all kinds of pleading, ridiculous noises to get her to wake up.

Wifey is sick, and there's no chance she's coming out of there. Fado takes every cough, sniffle and moan as simply a prelude to her being awake.

For those of you unfamiliar with operatic pets like Fado, this is the deal. Portuguese Water Dogs, or Porties, for short, are born with a very unique type of bark. Namely, they trill like opera stars doing warmups rather than the straight, staccato woof of most dogs. This can be quite pleasant and expressive in the right moment.

Now, at 5:30 am, it's equivalent to the water-drip method of torture. Porties are also known for being extremely intelligent and also very stubborn, so every attempt to mollify Fado has him looking at me like I'm an idiot. "Don't you see she's IN THERE? Until she's OUT HERE with us, something has to be done!"

But what does all this have to do with a zombie attack?

Well, basically, I had a dream last night that zombies were on the loose in our town, and this old lady zombie had made it to our back porch and was fixin' to eat us both. Fado jumped in and rescued Wifey and I.

Unfortunately, Old Lady Z. took a mighty big chomp out of his hindquarters and the rest of the dream was watching my dog slowly expire from saving us from the undead. He would limp around the backyard with his legs moving slower and slower until he was just dragging them along behind him like a pair of wet sticks.

But he's here in the dim light of morning, fully healthy and concerned for Wifey, so I will forgive him his operatic nuisance.