the great hou-doggy

25Mar10

Gracie is a magician. Or possesses some mystical, supernatural powers. Or is just possessed.

The jury is still out on this.

Maybe Gracie really is possessed....

Regardless of the reason, Gracie has left me wondering “How the hell did she do that?” several times in our few months together. Two stories specifically stand out in my mind. I’m still not sure how she did these two. Maybe you can help me.

Story 1: the empty harness

Gracie is extremely skittish. I’ll delve into this deeper in a later post, but for now just know that she is terrified of loud noises and most people.

One day I was taking her for a walk but had some recycling I needed to drop off first. At my apartment complex, the recycling bins are centrally located near the exit of the complex. I figured it would be easy to swing by and drop the recycling off with Gracie and we would continue on our walk.

As you learned in my first post, Gracie is really good at getting out of her leash and collar, so I had gotten into the habit of putting a harness on her so that she couldn’t squirm out…or so I thought.

The harness was on Gracie correctly and everything was buckled when we started walking toward the recycling bins.

When we got to them, something about these green plastic bins didn’t settle well with her and she started to pull away.

“It’s OK,” I thought. “She’s on the harness, she can’t get away.”

So I turned my back on her and started putting my stuff in the bin. She was pulling on the leash the whole time, then suddenly the pulling stopped. At first I thought she had finally given up and decided just to wait for me to finish so we could walk. Then I realized how dumb of an idea that was. Gracie isn’t that rational.

I turned around and saw that I was holding a leash connected to a completely empty harness. I stared confused for a few seconds until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gracie leisurely strolling through the grass to my left.

By this time, I had finally learned that Gracie doesn’t to run away and that if I don’t chase her she won’t go too far away. It didn’t take that long to get her back on the leash and it wasn’t nearly as traumatic as the first time she got off the leash.

When I got her back on the leash, I examined the harness, assuming that something must have broken or that the latch must have popped.

Nothing.

The buckle was still snapped and the harness was in perfect condition. I’m still not exactly sure how she got out. The harness wasn’t skin tight, but it certainly wasn’t loose. And I am 100 percent positive that I put it on her correctly.

I’ve used the harness since and she’s never gotten off of it since then.

Story 2: jail break

I crate trained Gracie from the beginning (as you learned in “crate wars”), so every time I leave the house, she goes in her crate.

One evening, I left for a few hours to get some dinner and meet up with some friends. I gave Gracie her bone, a blanket and a treat in her crate, locked everything up and left.

When I got back, I opened the door to find Gracie running through the living room to welcome me home. My first instinct was that this was normal. My family used to leave my old family dog out in the house when we would leave, so she would meet us at the door when we got home.

Then I realized that this wasn’t right. Gracie should be in her crate.

I looked around the living room and nothing was torn up, destroyed or out of place. She had an accident on the floor, but this was still during the time when she wasn’t completely house or crate trained.

I walked into my room, where I keep the crate. It was still standing and the door was closed.

“How in the world did she get out?” I wondered.

My first thought was that I just forgot to put her in in the first place. But I distinctly remembered locking her up and I always leave the door open when she’s not locked up so that she can go in there and lay down with her blanket if she wants to.

There were no bent bars or busted walls on the crate, so the only way she could have gotten out was through the door. So I inspected the latches.

The door has two latches. The top one was latched fine. The bottom one wasn’t.

Well that explains it…sort of.

That had to be how she got out, but the space she must have crawled through is inconceivable. When I pulled it as hard as I could, I could only get a few inches of space.

She’s skinny, but she’s still a 45-50-pound dog. This was a very small gap.

Since then, I’ve been sure to lock the bottom latch every time and she hasn’t escaped again, so that must have been the answer. But I still don’t see how she got out.

What makes these stories even harder to believe is that I never actually saw her do them. I either had my back turned or I wasn’t home.

Maybe I need to install a puppy cam and see what this crazy dog is doing when I’m not looking.

Do you have a dog that’s an escape artist? Or a dog that’s made you think “How the heck did (s)he do that?” Let me know in the comments. I love to hear your stories!

Next week, I talk about what I think makes Gracie as skittish as she is.

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