Our New Security System

He's been a family member about 7 months. 5:15 am today while we were in a state of blissful sleep, the howling started. My husband ran downstairs to see what the heck was going on. The barking stopped and my husband came back to bed. I asked him what the problem was and he told me the neighbor put their artificial Christmas tree in the garbage and the dog thought it was a person standing in front of our house. I asked, "So what did you do?" He told me he told Herc (our dog) it was not a person it was a tree. To me too, at this time of day, this sounded like the perfect solution, clarifying things to a dog. As soon as my husband got back in bed, the growling started again. My husband again jumped out of bed and repeated the explanation to the dog, that it was a tree in the garbage not a stalker casing the house. By this time the kids were awake and came downstairs to see the cause of the commotion. My one son said I'll just take Herc to see the tree. So he put on his boots and threw his coat over his jammies and took the dog to see the artificial tree that was in the garbage. It is like 9 degrees and barely light. The dog sniffed the tree and the rest of the garbage. They came back in. My son went to hang up his coat and the dog went back to the window, looked outside and saw the tree and started growling. Oh my gosh! We ended up taking Herc to another part of this house by bribing him with treats and comfy pillows so he forgot about the peeping tom that was a tree. You know, it is always something, isn't it?!