dogs don't look both ways

For years Joey, our Chocolate Labrador Retriever, would try any means imaginable to escape from our back yard.

The recommended minimum fence height for Labrador Retrievers is 4 feet. We had a nice and 6 foot-tall fence surrounding our yard! But Joey was too clever. He would nudge the gate lock with his nose until it released and then walk through the gate, the door open wide behind him. 

One solution to preventing him from opening the gate lock was keeping the wooden gate padlocked in a locked position all the time. This would work - until our gardeners would come and usually forget to relock the padlock or they would sort of close the padlock without the true "click" that signaled it was locked.

We would wait for - and get - the inevitable phone call: "Hello, do you have a dog? He's up here at the school yard." When I arrived at the school yard, the supervising teacher asked if the children could pet Joey; then all the children were lined up, Joey sitting like a king at the head of the line, and the children filed one-by-one to have their turns to pet him! 

In our new home, we decided to put child-proof locks on our gates wherever possible.

One afternoon in the dead of winter, there was 2 feet of snow on the ground in our New England abode.  We had Joey outside; I was sure he wasn't going anywhere, and I happily went about my business at home.   Until the phone call 30 minutes later:  "Hello, do you have a dog?  I'm here in the park..." 

Now we had to do some real detective work: It was the footprints in the snow that presented the evidence. But the footprints stopped about 4 feet before the fence! What had he done? Joey had found one place in the chain link fence that was not affixed on top to the top bar; then he had born all his weight on the chain link and ridden the siding like a wave until it was horizontal with the ground, and then he walked out, leaving only his footprints in the snow.

When the ground was not frozen, there was the usual digging, and my innumerable attempts to discover and to patch up and reinforce any areas where Joey had showed an interested in digging his way out or that seemed vulnerable.  Still the phone calls: "Hello, do you have a dog? I live near the golf course and I have your dog in our home....He's really friendly..." 

On some days the phone call never even came: The police or Animal Control would just pull up their van to our home and show up at our front door and the guilty party would walk ou of the back of the van, head to the ground, and sneak a peak at me as he made his way slowly to the front door.  Each time my husband and I thought Joey had luck on his side and each time we did the compulsory  property inspection. And each time we were thankful that Joey was such a friendly dog and people in our neighborhood were so caring and dog-friendly and could get close to him to get our home phone number off of his dog tag and even bring him in their home until I arrived.

Then there was the one morning in early Spring.

Please continue! Go to "Running Partners".