You would have thought we were under attack.

Ferrah bolted from her bed under the kitchen table, hackles raised, and launched herself at the glass back door. The growls rumbled, threateningly and her barking was ear splitting.

Carol and I looked at one another in amazement. This was not the cute cuddly puppy that is now a member of the household. All of 30 pounds, Ferrah loves having her tummy rubbed. She lies on her back and stretches to make certain you cover it all. She’ll climb into your lap, licking your face.

She’s a child, loving, inquisitive and easily startled. On one of her recent leaps for my lap, I growled at her. She practically stopped mid-leap, gave a frightened look and started barking.

“It’s all right Ferrah, you were going to knock the coffee over,” I said softly. Backing off, she continued barking. I reached out.

She didn’t know what to make of it.

She decided it was a game. She settled down, then advanced to see if there was a treat in my extended hand. With a spurt of energy she raced out of the kitchen into the dining room and back again. The racing - and she goes very fast - has become part of a game where we toss stuffed animals that she loves flinging into the air, chewing and pulling on them when we can catch her.

But now I had growled. What did that mean? Was I going to play a game of catch me if you can?

Not that long ago, as told in this column, she somehow became entangled in the shoulder strap of my daughter-in-law’s purse, which was at her feet as we had dinner. Ferrah started backing out from under the table. The purse followed. Ferrah panicked. The purse kept coming after her, its contents rattling. She bolted out of the dining room, through the living room into the kitchen and back to our protection. The incident had us doubled over with laughter. Poor Ferrah was looking to us for protection. We calmed her down, but for days after she avoided going under the dining room table.

Now with the latest turn, she appeared focused on defending us and her home ground.

It was getting dark and glancing out the door, nothing out of the ordinary was apparent. Carol suggested our neighbor may have let their dog out or perhaps one of the cats had streaked across our porch. Ferrah stood her ground with a commanding bark that was bigger than she is.

From her performance, she was the protector and evidently she was taking her job seriously. It said she values this home and she’s shedding some of that puppy innocence. We finally got her to calm down, although she expelled a few half barks from her bed.

Early the next morning Carol took Ferrah out the door she had so fiercely guarded the night before.

“I know what it was,” she said when the two returned.

“She went right for it.”

What?

“It’s a bunny.”