There is a great business with many great products with a big office building with a fence around the property with lots of guard dogs keeping vigilant watch over the property and the business.

The business has been phenomenally successful for a long time, thanks to the many faithful guard dogs and the many dedicated people committed to the business who have occupied the office.

Over the years there have been many bad people who tried to break in and steal from the business to destroy it and even kill the people in the office and kill the guard dogs.

But the people running the office and the guard dogs have always been an unbeatable team.

The guard dogs are not all the same breed, but they have always communicated well with each other and with the office people.

The guard dogs never got tired of standing guard and loudly alerting everyone at the first hint of danger.

The office people always quickly rushed to the danger and dealt with any potential intruders.

And at those rare times when security was breached, all the guard dogs rushed to the occasion, unified with total commitment, and thoroughly disposed of the bad guys as only guard dogs can do.

As the business became more successful, the guard dogs got better food, more food, and became fatter and slower and less motivated to stand guard with the same focus as before.

And then something happened to the leadership in the office, and the guard dogs did not realize at first that it was also their duty to guard the office from bad guys taking over from inside the security fence.

It turns out the people in the office were inviting bad guys into the office and making secret deals with them for their own benefit, endangering everything the business stood for.

At first the guard dogs were stunned, in disbelief.

Then a few of them barked a warning, and others told them to be quiet and not attract attention, because they weren’t sure of imminent danger.

Normally the guard dogs didn’t go in the house, except for a handful specially trained in secret manners.

Then rumors got the best of the guard dogs, and some of them approached the house to sniff out the truth.

They found out the danger was real, and worse than they imagined.

Everyone in the house was planning and working to destroy the whole business.

When the guard dogs barked out the truth they had learned, there was such an outcry throughout the vast property of the business, it was like the opening scene of 101 Dalmations.

Then things really started happening.

What can the guard dogs do but bark, when the business leaders invited the bad guys in, safe inside the office?

What can the handful of secret guard dogs do inside the office, when they are trained to protect the people in the office, who are now in with the bad guys.

As some of the guard dogs speak up—bark up the tree—one here and one there die from poisoned meat.

Now what?

Do the guard dogs keep barking up a frenzy, but carefully dodge the poisoned meat by not really doing anything about what’s going on in the house?

Do the guard dogs shut up and suffer silently, or unite and storm the house and do what they must do, to save the business and reclaim the life they once knew?

 

I trust that I do not need to explain the analogy.

“. . . we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

 

*alternate titles:

TO BARK—OR NOT TO BARK

TO BITE—OR NOT TO BITE