guard the home against fireworks in the sky and parade floats passing by in the street by growling at them from the window until they stopped.

I think I’ll save it and re-read it on Halloween.

They set up an entire cemetery with animated skeletons and other monsters all over their front yard - already!

Hope Ember doesn't use up any of her 9 trying to be protective.

I think that she will get used to it after a while. When she encounters new "threats" she gets protective and defensive, but once she satisfies herself that there is nothing to fear, she ignores it.

When she was a kitten, she used to watch me blow dry my hair, but hissed at the dryer. One day, after I turned the dryer off and laid it down, Ember got up the courage to sneak up on the dryer and swat it - hard.

Shortly afterward I opened the closet to take out the vacuum cleaner, which Ember had always run away from as soon as she saw it. But that time, she rushed into the closet while it was turned off and just sitting there, and belted it hard several times. When I plugged it in and turned it on that day, instead of hiding, she sat in a high place and watched it move around the room.

She has never feared the dryer or vacuum since then.