Dogs are pretty cool. Our old family dog, a tiny Shih Tzu, used to do the same. He freaked out once when he saw my dad tickling me and roughhousing a bit with me, so sometimes my dad would just start tickling me and the dog would RUN up to us and start barking at him. My dad always got a kick out of that.
I always thought it was a show that the dog actually cared for me, because normally when I picked up the dog he would immediately start licking my face so I'd let go
