The Shape

Barley, a dog, overcomes her fear of a ball of snow.

In most contexts, Barley runs toward anything that catches her attention. She has things she’s afraid of, of course (thunderclaps, lightning flashes, and fireworks all come to mind), but when it comes to objects she’s afraid of, Public Enemy #1 is “a large, bright, basic shape.” Here we see a ball of snow, no doubt rolled by students during the recent snow and slowly succumbing to the sun’s heat. Barley spotted this snowball from about 20 yards away and immediately started growling. The hair on her back stood up and her tail tucked between her legs. When I tried to get her to approach the offending sphere, her first instinct was to try to orbit around it with the leash at full tension. Only with much cajoling did I get her to approach the sphere and, after much hesitant sniffing, she seems to have concluded that it was all a false alarm.