She stands over the crawling ant with her head dropped down, ears hanging next to her face like a couple of big black blinders. The insect scurries across the slick floor as fast as those six hairy legs can carry it. The Spy Child is focused on it so intently that she looks as if she’s analyzing each foot placement. The ant pauses, maybe detecting danger somewhere close. Spy freezes with one paw up and tucked under her elbow like a setter on point. The ant changes direction and speeds toward sweet Molly, my six-year-old Rottweiler, resting comfortably on her rug, but eyeballing Spy, wondering what she might be up to now. As the ant draws closer, and Spy drops her head lower and lower, Molly furrows her brow. She looks worried. She’s figuring this probably won’t turn out peacefully. Molly isn’t interested in the ant, but instead, scowls at Spy’s stance knowing this doesn’t look good, no matter what the kid is up to. She glances upward at me with pleading eyes as though perhaps I could distract the locked and loaded mutt from the inevitable. I know my reaction won’t be fast enough to do any good.

The unsuspecting ant draws closer to Molly while Spy tenses herself like a coiled spring. It’s going happen no matter what anyone does. It’s already a done deal. The ant seems to detect danger and looks to Molly for cover. At the last moment before the black bug is able to scurry under Molly’s back foot, the spring lets loose. Spy rears up on her hind legs like a polar bear trying to break ice for some submerged seal. She lands on the ant stopping it in its tracks. Molly sits up with a growling grunt, clearly frustrated at her antics, and feels that once again, Spy just had to involve her in some way. Giving a wide birth to my Spy Child, who she now dubs, “The Idiot Ant Chaser,” Molly storms off in a huff to the bedroom, a more subdued and safe retreat. From my vantage point, I can’t really blame her.

Spy ignores the distraction of Molly making her getaway, and lifting her paw up to analyze the damage report on the ant, discovers … “IT’S GONE!! No, wait, it’s not!” She shakes her paw, flinging the poor insect three feet to her right. Splat! It hits the side of the stove and down it goes onto the floor where it momentarily is stunned by a minor concussion, but painfully pulls itself together, trying to scurry away on the remaining five legs that are still in working condition.

On the prowl again, the hunter intensely watches her prey as it staggers toward the shelter of a desk. Spy thinks up a brilliant idea! With the greatest of care, curling her lips up and out of the way and with surgical precision, Spy gingerly picks the ant up with her front teeth to carry her victim into the center of the room so she can achieve a more tactical position in case further combat lies ahead. Suddenly....