As someone once told Spider Man, “with great power comes great responsibility.”  Little did Asa and I realize that they were referring to squeaky toys! We learned this important lesson early one morning when we accidentally awakened the primal Wolf instincts in our neighbors.  It began like any other day, Asa and I had just returned from our walk and were ready for a game of fetch, when Mom surprised us with a new squeaky ball.  It looked like an ordinary ball, and to be honest at first we were more excited that it smelled like bacon than anything else.  That is until Asa gave it a squeak.

Immediately the adrenaline started pumping through our veins.  This was no simple ball.  This was prey that we needed to hunt!  Asa immediately began prancing around the yard squeaking the ball.  Silly puppy, that’s not how Wolves attack their prey!  This is serious business!  After wrestling the ball away from Asa, I immediately began shaking it to break its spine, all while its helpless squeaking echoed in my ears.  This only made us more excited. Suddenly the ball slipped from my grasp, and Mom had it.

In those brief moments of no squeaking, we realized the neighborhood had erupted in barking.  Barking from one direction was our neighbor Chenille, but she is an excitable diva who barks at everything.  However, we also heard barking coming from the direction of our neighbor Charlie, who tends to be a dog of few words.  Even in the distance our neighbors on the opposite side of the woods were barking.  Sorry I don’t know their names, we’ve never been properly introduced.  But just as the squeaking stopped, so did the barking.  Our neighborhood fell eerily silent.

Mom tossed the ball and our game of fetch continued.  As soon as I squeaked the ball, the barking started again.  That’s when we realized our squeaking had awakened the primal Wolf instincts of the neighborhood dogs!  No one can resist the call of the squeaky!  Next thing we knew, our neighbor Trouble was frantically pacing at our fence, anxious to locate the prey, pounce on it, and kill it!  We were speechless.  To get to our yard that meant Trouble had to have burst through his electric fence, ignoring that ear piercing pain, and follow his instincts across the street to our yard!  Now that’s impressive!  Well we were impressed, but Mom wasn’t.  She knew Trouble’s Mom would be worried, and promptly returned him to the safety of his yard.  Besides, she didn’t want Trouble’s brother, Odie, to follow in hot pursuit crossing that busy road.  When Mom returned she replaced our new squeaky ball with our old tennis ball.

The silence signaled to the neighbors that our prey was dead and the hunt was over.  Quiet settled over our neighborhood once more.  That’s when we realized, with great squeaky toys comes great responsibility!  It wasn’t nice of us to excite the entire neighborhood with our squeaking or to put Trouble in danger by enticing him to cross the road.  Ok, so it is the ball’s fault not ours.  Instincts are instincts and you can’t fight your inner Wolf!  But from now on, we will be more aware of how sound travels so as not to unnecessarily awaken the neighborhood Wolves…at least not so early in the morning!