by Noah Gloege

National and World Editor

Have you ever been in the middle of a cram session or a job interview and your neighbor’s dog starts howling outside your door? Well, I have. For context, this dog’s name is Luna, and it belongs to a retired neighbor. I personally love dogs and find this particular canine to be especially adorable. The only downside to this is that she has almost always decided that her best use of time is to run all the way to my house. She then proceeds to somehow sneak past my fence, then release a terrifying, ear-grating screech. And it’s not one of those really cute barks, no, no, no. It is genuinely one of those barks that, if you are not expecting it, can actually make you check to see if the full moon is out. It is a bit early for Halloween, but we will let it slide. 

The constant bombardment of barks and terror towards my window has become such a big part of my day, I am almost waiting for her to arrive. Luna has recently also started to terrorize my older dog. My older dog is really calm about life; she doesn’t really care about anything. Except when Luna comes and tries to terrorize her. Luna has this idea that she wants to be the number one, and with my older dog getting the love, she has gotten quite jealous. To change this, she has started to absolutely annoy me, and what some would call: ragebait. She has done this in numerous ways, like running up behind us while we are walking, and just turning into an F1 driver and zooming around us and jumping onto us. She somehow manages to still make this really adorable. I just think my older dog is kinda losing it at her. 

For those of you who are wondering why we cannot walk her back home, it’s because this dog has somehow gotten faster than my WiFi when I am trying to load something before a due date. She has also found a way to do this during the most pressing of times, whether that is me trying to keep a straight face during my job interview, or while I am on FaceTime with some friends who cannot stop laughing about Luna. Anytime I am in the midst of something important, she decides that it is the best moment to treat it like she’s in the opera. At this point, it’s personal. She has to run past four or five houses to get to my place, and it is not easy to access without opening the gate. Like, why is she going after my place? Why my porch? Whenever I walk out there to try and chase her off, it usually ends with her either running off or going absolutely crazy when she sees me.  

This has almost become a daily routine, as almost every day she runs down the street just to essentially cliff dive down to my house.  I almost respect her determination, though. Almost. Sometimes she just suddenly appears while I am outside of my place, we end up having a staring contest that well… I always lose. At this point, I have stopped asking questions; it’s just become a daily routine. I swear, she must think that she is Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible, doing her own stunts. At least she is extremely adorable, just please, Luna, maybe don’t bark and howl up a storm the next time I have an interview? At the end of the day, I cannot help but laugh. Sure, her timing could use quite a lot of work, but at the same time, it’s become a big part of my day.