Yesterday morning, Wes let Charlie out into the backyard. While he was out there, Ana woke up and made her way to the living room couch. For reasons we won’t even try to understand, she began yelling, “CHARLIE! CHARLIE! PROTECT ME!”

From out in the backyard, Charlie heard her screaming, bounded up the porch steps in response, and began jumping forcefully on the sliding door. Wes let him in so that Charlie wouldn’t just bust through the glass (for real!), and he ran the house several times, searching for intruders. He heard Ana screaming and came to her rescue.

This may seem like a really silly story (as are the other stories of him coming to the door to stand between me and whoever was on the porch), but it does my heart good to see that at the very young age of just nine months old (today, actually), Charlie is already exactly who we hoped he would be as a full grown adult. And then some!

Now if we can just get him to stop shedding, right?

Just kidding. We’ll take his protective, brilliant self, pounds of superfluous fur and all!