I have two big dogs. And while I didn’t get them for protection, and they are both friendly to dogs and man, I always figured they’d be good to have on my side if ever we were to run into Big Scary Monsters.

Today I learned how true that is.

It’s been cold here this weekend, so we haven’t been venturing out for as many daily miles as normal. In fact, it was a balmy 2 degrees when we woke up this morning, so we decided to postpone our morning walk a little and hope for a little more red to appear on the thermometer.

By the time we ventured out around 10, it had warmed up 6 times over to a much more reasonable 12 degrees. And since it was also nice and sunny, it felt like at least 13.

We had done a nice vigorous hike through the woods to get our body temp up, and Pavi had rearranged the forest by moving a few trees from here to there to keep his blood pumping, and were heading back to the car.

We had come out of the woods and were crossing the field to the parking lot, when Pavi, my big, intimidating, 95 pound black Shepherd, suddenly stops dead and stares intently into the woods.

Then the hackles all the way down his back go up and he starts barking at whatever he is staring at.

I walk up next to him and prepare myself for an enormous porcupine, or coyote, or wooly mammoth or BigFoot himself to charge out at us.

But nothing happens.

After a few more seconds pass with no monster emerging from the woods, I start to relax.

But my furry 4 footed companion has not.

And now he’s added a little lunge forward/ leap back move to his armor.

This helps me pinpoint the Big Scary Monster.

Someone had rolled a big ball of snow, like the bottom of a snowman, through the field and left it beside the trail.

And this Monster Snowball had set off all the alarms and sent my ultra tough protector into DefCon 5 mode.

It wasn’t until I went and sat on the snowball and finally lured my watchdog in with treats, so he could neutralize the threat, that we could finally continue down the trail and back to our car.

I don’t know what will happen if we ever do encounter Big Foot, but at least I know I am safe from snowballs.