Disappearing Acts

When Tess was a puppy, we couldn't find her one afternoon. The gate was closed, the garage door was down, she wasn't in the house and definitely not in the backyard where she was supposed to be. We found her in our neighbors' backyard, but couldn't figure out how she got there. Eventually we discovered that a fairly large dog can easily squeeze through a loose six-inch-wide fenceboard.

Kharma makes Tess look unmotivated.

First, she used a tipped-over garbage can to go over the fence to see her best friend, then actually climbed the fence at its lowest point when she heard Echo across the street. So we put up puppy barricades which are working perfectly (for the moment).

Stymied, she began using the defunct rabbit cage as a way over the fence. She was jumping up to the top of a four-foot cage and then just jumping over. It didn't get her any closer to Echo, but I guess she figured there was no harm in trying. I tried tipping the rabbit condo over and pulling it away from the fence, but our determined little girl managed to move a cage weighing sixty pounds closer to the fence. Let's just say that rabbit cage no longer exists except as a pile of old 2 by 4s and some hardware cloth.

I started looking for other things that Miss Creativity could use to climb and/or jump over the fence. I moved a milk can and rolled Erkie's tires out of the way, only to find that she could also move tires. She hides her ball under them and then moves them to get to her ball. She doesn't weigh more than thirty pounds tops and it's easier for her to move a tire than it is for me!

I put Kharma out for just a little while after dinner and couldn't find her an hour later. The rabbit cage had not reappeared. The barricades were still in place. She just wasn't in our yard.

I checked inside the house since I've found her many times lying leisurely in her bed wondering what all the fuss is about and why mom is calling her name so loudly. Still no pup.

Rechecked the entire yard, nothing. Rechecked the whole house, nothing. Loud calls of "Kharma, Kharma", nothing.

Eventually I caught a movement through the fence. She was in our neighbors' yard. She'd somehow used the tires, low as they were, to get high enough to claw her way over. I loosened a fence board and she scrambled through, relieved to be home.

Sigh. The tires are going on craigslist. The garbage enclosure is getting moved in front of the gate. We're moving benches away from the fence even if they are in the gated sideyard that she's never been in. I think we'll also make some test runs--have Echo's dad bring her over and see if the Kharma dog can figure out a way over the fence.

We are trying to be smarter than our dog.