When Tuffy got home from class yesterday, she found a note on the door saying that our dog had been running loose in the street, and had nearly been hit by a car. Bareit, clearly the subject of the note and clearly still loose, greeted Tuffy at the front door.
Crap.
If there's a way to keep this darned dog in when he wants to be out, we obviously haven't figured out how to do it. Although I admit our fence needs work, it was good enough to keep two greyhounds safely contained for three years. If Bareit wants out, he's out in about five minutes. He's been over it, under it, and, most recently, through it. Fortunately, he usually runs to the front door and waits to be let in. Sometimes he doesn't, and that's bad. It makes me queasy to think about him running in the street.
When I lived in Laingsburg, Michigan, on any crisp fall afternoon I could count on Maggie Blue to make a break for it. She was an English setter, and she lived for birds. If I wasn't going to take her out to look for them, she'd go by herself. We lived on 5 acres, surrounded by corn fields amply populated by ringnecked pheasants. There was a very entertaining pen full of quail behind house, and a bunch of fat, slow chickens. The road that went by our house got little traffic, and although there was little reason for her to go that way, I was still terrified that Maggie and a car would somehow wind up in the same place at the same time. (Never happened. She moved with me to Lansing, and later to Seattle, where she lived to a ripe old age.)
The street we live on now isn't the autobahn, but it carries a lot more traffic than a road in rural Michigan. And really, it only takes one car, coming along at the right time, to make a dog seriously flat.
Scarecrow erected a temporary barricade last night, confining the wandering whippet to the least permeable part of the yard. Seriously, if he can get out of this, I really don't know what else we can do. He won't get as much exercise, but at least he'll be alive to get fat.
The little s#!t.
Posts
Hello world!
10 months ago
How scary - Bareit, Bareit, Bareit! Guess you have tried it all? Large fenced kennel designed with an escaping pig in mind. Seriously, pigs get out of everything.
ReplyDeletePut a service dog vest on him and take him to work. yeah bet that would work . ..
Ok good luck and remind me if I ever think about getting a whippet how smart they are ;)
How scary! Did you ever think of a long lead? We use that when our Kasey comes to visit.
ReplyDeletePeace,
Muff
Scary although your comment, "confining the wandering whippet to the least permeable part of the yard" lent a poetic tone to the whole affair.
ReplyDeleteHad an LOL moment about Jan's service dog vest idea. Uh, electric collar? I know sounds awful and is probably expensive setting up the perimeter.
Many years ago my partner and I had a golden who would get out and wander the neighborhood. The neighbors all said he could hear our cars coming and would race through the neighborhood, sail over the fence and lay down innocently on the front porch to greet us.
Good luck with a solution to the wandering whippet.
Donna
This is a tuffy. We had a German Shep, had large, tall fence installed by Sears. He was chasing kids as the walked to school. The fence ended that. One night a burglar tried to break in our back door, when we heard glass breaking, made it to scene, Wolf was gone, having jumped through the back door glass and when we called him, he came running back, blood on his mouth, and hopped over the fence like it was a small mushroom. Busted. But he knew what the fence MEANT and he never ran away after it had been installed. Hmmm, your situation is a hard one. I'd say more training. But I wish dog and owner well.
ReplyDelete