Emergency!

"Red Dog!" I yelled, "what are you doing?"

Fluttering their wings and screaming in terror, four baby robins cowered helplessly in the grass before Red Dog. Their mother flitted above them screaming and snapping her wings in the air, but she was too afraid of Red Dog to do anything else.

Red Dog's eyes laughed at what he thought was a funny game. His wet, pink tongue dangled from a broad dog-smile. Then, as if to say that he really liked to meet young birds, he planted a generous tongue-lick upon one of the nestlings. The lick sent the baby bird tumbling backwards in the grass.

Aooouuuuuuuuu... !!!" Red Dog howled.

Thinking that Red Dog was trying to eat her baby, the mother robin had overcome her fear, dropped from the sky, and dug her sharp claws into Red Dog's scalp!

Yelping more from surprise than from being hurt, Red Dog escaped around the corner of the house, his tail crooked between his legs.

"Red Dog," I called, laughing, "today you have discovered that certain things are not to be played with!"

And then the brave mother robin dropped toward my own scalp and I, too, yelping more from surprise than from being hurt, escaped yelping around the corner of the house.