Ray has a Scary Day

I was working in my office when I heard a loud noise. I couldn't tell what it was or where it came from. Then I heard the back door screen fwoop closed (the entire screen is weighted with marbles on the bottom and acts as a giant doggie door.)
I ran downstairs yelling "Ray? Ray?" Ray was in the front hallway; he was facing the back door and all of the hair on his back was standing up in a ridge.
"What's wrong Ray?" I asked him, not really expecting a response.
Ray stood still except for his legs which were trembling slightly, still facing the door, his necked stretched out, his ears deployed in Dumbo mode.
I went to the back door and looked outside. Ray followed me to the middle of the kitchen then stopped, hair still up, legs still atremble, neck still stretched, ears still deployed. I was getting a bit creeped out but stepped through the screen and into the backyard. Ray came up to the screen door but would venture no further.

I started down a short path that leads to the treed area of the backyard, looking around me as I went. I didn't see anything. I looked back and saw Ray's head poked out the screen "looking" in my direction. "Come on Ray, it's OK. I got your back," I said.
 Ray stayed put. I walked a bit further and saw an ENORMOUS branch, fully leafed out, lying in the yard (it was a windy day). It was the size of a small tree. I walked over to it and tried to drag it out of position but it was too big. I kind of rolled it out of the shrub that it had landed on, and over a few feet to the edge of the yard. I walked back to the house and called Ray to come out. Ray slooowwwly stepped through the screen and crept around the yard. I showed him the branch and talked to him soothingly, then headed back to the house. Ray stood for a moment, thinking, then charged after me, running ahead of me into the house. He wasn't taking any chances.

A little later, after stripping the bed and washing sheets, I was swiffering the hardwood floors in the bedroom. Ray was curled up on the scratchy blanket that I had tossed on the area rug. Usually, Ray's scratchy blankie covers the foot of the bed and is there for him to lay on. (Ray knows it's his, so if it was going to be on the floor, so was he.) I picked up the remote control inflator for the Sleep Number bed (God's gift to people with back problems) and held the button down to inflate it to 100. I do this every once-in-awhile just because I can. The inflator made a low hummmm while it cranked in the air, then a pshhhhhh while it let out a bit, then a hummmmm while it put a little air back in, then a pshhhhh while it let out a tiny bit then a loud CLICK CLICK when it got the inflation just right. Ray had picked up his head at the beginning of this cycle and by the time it got to the end he was on his feet, ears deployed in Dumbo mode.

I held the button down on the inflator to do the same thing to Gregg's side of the bed. Hummmmm, pshhhhhhh, hummmmmm. By the time it got to the second pshhhhhhh all the hair was up on Ray's back. And at the CLICK CLICK he let out a yell that raised the roof off of the house. Then he stood in the hallway, looking into the bedroom, growling. I told him it was nothing. His nose was sniffing furiously, the hair still straight up. I explained about the sleep numbers. He growled and crept forward, nose plastered to the ground. He yelled again. Sniffffff, sniffffff, sniffff. He couldn't figure it out. He reached under the bed with his paws, stretching as far as he could, trying to feel what kind of weird, odorless animal was hanging out in our bedroom but he couldn't find anything. I kept talking to him trying to convince him that it was nothing. Ray listened and sniffed around while I went back to swiffering. All of a sudden he realized that I was SWIFFERING and the game was on. The strange monster forgotten in the joy of the hunt.