Book 'Em, Dan'l

Two o'clock this morning, my wife, the dogs, and I are snug in our bed, and sound asleep. Of a moment, the little dog Layla goes off, hits the floor barking, out the doggie-door into the back yard, carrying on.

In my deep stupor, I'm roused enough to figure it must be five a.m., and my wife is up and has let the dogs out to razz the squirrels -- but no -- Jude the Larger adds his woofery, and I wake up enough to realize that my wife is still in bed, and she says, "Something's going out there."

I put on my glasses, grab my bedside weaponry, and walk naked into the back yard. There are loud voices, and I figure, Friday night shading into Saturday, one of the neighbors who is a noisy party guy when he drinks has gotten one over his limit.

Jude scrambles past me to join Layla in her tiny imitation of the Hound of the Baskervilles. The yelling voices -- at least two -- sound as if they are right next door, and of a moment, the blinking red and blue of a police car's roof rack lights up the house next to mine.

Police. And dealing with a miscreant.

Over Layla and Jude's barking, the sound of a bigger dog out front carrying on, all excited.

K-9?

Probably not a good idea to be standing naked in the back yard holding a firearm.

So I toodle back inside, and get dressed, go to the front window and peep out.

Half a dozen of Beaverton's finest have somebody down on the front lawn next door, twenty feet from the window. I can't really see much because of the angle. The K-9 officer and dog are dancing on my sidewalk, and the human is telling the dog what a good boy he is for biting the runner on the ass. I know this last because I hear the officer say, "He got him on the ass!"

Looks like it's all over, whatever it is, but the officers are walking up and down, shining lights hither and yon, and either looking for somebody else, or, more likely given the dog, looking for something the suspect dropped or tossed during his flight.

My wife wants to go out and see what is going on, so we step into the fenced courtyard out front (leaving the gun behind) and get a quick flashlight wave. "Go back inside, please."

A few minutes later, everybody packs up and leaves. The dogs go back to sleep, and given what we saw, I'm going with the idea that somebody was fleeing and got caught in the neighbor's yard by the dog. Who, what he might have done, I dunno, and this morning, there aren't any reports up anywhere. Maybe it'll make the news today and we can see.

Ours is a quiet neighborhood. We've had police activity around our house only four or five times in twenty-odd years, never a shot fired, though some weapons have been waved.

It does wake you right up to have it happening that close.