Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Hund Stalag #1

dora escapeDora has a troubling habit of digging in the back yard.

I’ve resigned myself to the realization that I have lots of holes to fill before I can mow this spring. I’m willing to indulge her as long as she doesn’t dig too deep and get into the septic finger system or try to tunnel out under the chain link fence.

As you have already guessed, the latter happened yesterday.

We wanted to bring the dogs in while we ate dinner last night, but couldn’t find Dora. We called for her out the back door and I went into the back yard and scanned the area for her unsuccessfully. We looked in all of her favorite hiding places inside the house.

Then Maria spied her looking at Jack through the back fence. She was outside the fence, where she has absolutely no business. We dashed outside through the garage and called her and she raced into Maria’s arms from the back of the property.

We had a couple of very upsetting lost dog separations with Pete back in Indiana so I get panicked thinking about Jack or Dora running away.

I walked the perimeter of the fence and found the spot on the west side of the yard where she had dug a Dora-size tunnel under the wire. We have a pile of bricks left over from the construction of the house, so I loaded a bunch of them into the wheelbarrow and Maria and I used them to close off the tunnel and its approaches. I left the wheelbarrow propped up against the outside of the fence for good measure.

When we next let her into the yard, she went straight to the tunnel site and examined it, then walked away with apparent disappointment.

We’ve won this round, but I keep thinking about the movie The Great Escape and imagining that we’re the commandants of Hund Stalag #1, just waiting for the next breakout attempt.

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