1 . Many years ago, I was a student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I had an evening class that was a fifteen-minute ________ from my dorm. No one in my dorm was taking the same class, so I walked to and from class alone, ________ in the dark.

One evening, I ________ two very large, black Doberman Pinschers following about twenty feet behind me. I have always been an animal lover and I have never been ________ of dogs, so I stopped walking, turned around, and talked to them. They ________ to come to me and when I tried to walk toward them, they backed up, keeping their ________. They were not threatening in any way as they did not growl (低吼) or flatten their ears — the way dogs do when they are about to ________. They just wouldn’t allow me to get close to them.

For weeks, every time I walked to this particular class, the two dogs appeared and ________ me. I was very ________ with the situation, even though the dogs would not interact with me.

One night, a car with three young men slowly ________. They were loud, ________ my attention. When the young men got out of the car, I felt a sense of ________. As they walked toward me, before I had time to react, the two Dobermans charged and barked at them. You never saw three people get into a car so ________ and pull away!

I spent the rest of the semester searching for those heroic dogs. ________, after that night when I needed their ________, my guardians never reappeared.