One night last week, I awoke at 3:30 a.m. to the sound of my elderly dog maniacally running around downstairs. She’s good at letting us know when she needs to be let out in the night and I assumed that it was no more complicated than that. In fact, despite being quite deaf, she knew that there was a skunk in the yard and her previous altercations with those striped bastards hadn’t successfully dissuaded her from making conspicuous attempts on their lives.