Sweetpea came to live with us on a one week trial
basis. She is very sweet, but was a
handful. She started fights with Sherbert.
She pooed on the carpet. She
jumped in the goldfish pond and shredded the plants. Then she dug a hole in the flowerbed and
rolled her wet body in the dirt. And she
would go walk about by sneaking under the fence.
At first I didn’t realize she was getting out. She would return and be waiting for me when I
got home. But then, I was sitting in staff meeting when my boss suddenly
stopped her discussion, tuned to me and said, “your dog is running loose.”
I rushed home.
Sweetpea had already returned. I
inspected the fence and found a spot where she had dug under. I locked her inside, went to the Home Depot
and bought several heavy, decorative fence panels.
I dug down a few inches and pressed the panels into the
ground along the fence. I used wire to
anchor the panels to the chain link.
“Try getting under that!” I said.
Sweet Pea looked up at me. The look in her eyes said, “Dear,
dear, sweet, naïve human minion, do you really think your simple attempts to
keep me imprisoned will work?” Or maybe
it said, “is it dinner time, yet?” Or maybe she was just looking at me because
I was speaking to her.
The next day, I left the doggie door open, certain that the
yard was secured. Then, afternoon rolled around and a text came in. “Sweetpea is out again” I rushed home. She had not returned. I drove around in the convertible, calling “Sweetpea,
come ride in the car.” She never came. A few neighbors had seen her running, running
like a bat out of hell.
I returned home again, put Sherbert on her leash and went
walking to look for her. As soon as we
were out the door, we saw Sweetpea at the top of the street. “Sweetpea!” She turned tail and headed into a
neighbor’s back yard. By the time we ran
to where she had been, she was nowhere to be seen. Sherbert and I wandered the cul-de-sacs with
no success. We finally gave up and
returned to find Sweetpea in the bay window.
Determined to find where she was getting under, I took her
out in the yard. I stuck next to her as
she walked around. Then suddenly, she
ran to the back fence and JUMPED OVER! After
running into the creek behind the house, swimming against the stream, then
swimming back downstream, she finally returned to me.
Did I mention that after the first two days, her foster
family indicated that they missed her, and wanted her back if things didn’t
work out? Oh yes, she was already
scheduled to return to her furever home days before. Do you think she knew that?
