The Boy and the Bike

When my boyfriend was a child, his grandmother owned a German Shepherd named Tiger that almost everyone in the neighborhood was afraid of.  One of the few exceptions to this was a boy with autism who lived on the same street.  Whereas everyone else was afraid to even approach Tiger (with good reason), this boy befriended him, and Tiger was unfailingly patient with him.  According to my boyfriend, Tiger "just knew" that there was something different about the boy.

Although I have always had a very high opinion of the intelligence of German Shepherds, I wondered about the accuracy of this statement...until one day when Prince displayed the same "sense."

At the time it occurred, Prince was out in the yard, and I happened to be at the back door, keeping an eye on him.  Suddenly he began to bark, and when I stepped out to see what the commotion was all about, I saw a boy pushing his bike up the street past my yard.

Most bicycle riders unlucky enough to pass by when Prince is outside tend to pick up the pace when they see him...quickly.  This boy, however, stopped walking as soon as Prince began to bark at him, propped his bike up on the sidewalk and marched directly up to him, both arms outstretched.

Prince's initial reaction frightened me.  He dodged away and then rushed back at the boy, the hair on his back standing on end.  I expected the boy to back off, but instead he leaned over the fence, still reaching for Prince, and shouted something unintelligible at him.  As I started to run toward them, Prince leaped up on the fence toward him...and then froze.

A very good boy

Suddenly, all of the aggression seemed to melt out of him.  He stared at the boy (who was still shouting at him), sniffed at his face and then slowly began to wag his tail, putting his ears back at the same time.  As the boy continued to shout at him, Prince leaned toward him in an almost solicitous manner and actually began sniffing at his mouth, his tail wagging wildly the whole time.  The boy began to pat him, vigorously, and then hugged him, hard, around the neck, as Prince licked his face.  When Prince finally got down from the fence, the boy backed off, picked up his bike and walked on.

My father told me years ago that German Shepherds react strongly to fear, and I have heard other people say this, as well.  Prince really does react differently to people that are scared of him than he does to people who really seem to like him (especially when he is in his yard).  I have to acknowledge that he might have responded as he did, at least in part, because the boy showed absolutely no fear of him.  I really doubt, though, that he would have reacted the same way if anyone else had been so forward with him.  I have to conclude that my boyfriend was probably right about his grandmother's German Shepherd.

German Shepherds really do "just know."