Otto and Otis - Brady

I don't think I believe in guardian angels. But I'm starting to wonder if giant dogs somehow follow me around and watch out for me.

When we first moved to Fort Wayne, a tough time for me, Kevin and I tossed and turned one really cold winter night because we kept hearing a big, mean-sounding dog barking very close to our house. I woke up at 5 a.m. to get ready to teach, and I found a GIANT black animal sitting on our front porch. It walked around to the back door, which leads to Kevin's and my room, and started pawing at the screen like it wanted to come in. We freaked out. Kevin insisted we put on gloves. (It was 5 a.m. I'm not sure either of us were very with it.) We opened the door. The huge Newfoundland immediately rolled over in the snow onto its back, wanting me to pet its belly. We put it in a back bedroom and fed it some tortillas. When I left for school, I opened the door to find it standing smack-dab in the middle of the room just looking at me. He hadn't chewed anything. Hadn't barked. Hadn't even laid down. After I left, Kevin took it to the vet listed on its tag and found out his name was "Otto" and that he lived on our road.

We never saw Otto (or his GIANT pawprints) again and never heard from his owners. Sometimes I wonder if Otto was at our house that night to scare something or somebody off. Other times I think maybe he was just there to give us a weird, fun, awesome morning.

Now, back in Chicago, going through another tumultuous time, I occasionally get to spend time with a 175-pound, tall enough to look at me eye-to-eye, Mastiff named Otis who lives in the coach house behind us. It seems like on the nights I'm most frustrated or angry, Otis is out back waiting for me. He even settled down a spazzy Lucy tonight by snuggling up to her on the stairwell. Chris, Otis's "dad," described him to me as "therapeutic."

I think I'd take an enormous dog over a guardian angel any day. :)