Jailbreak

This

Is my dog.

This

Is my new fence.

This

Is the hole, now sealed with rocks,

that the dog weaseled his way under yesterday, making a break for freedom.

Let me rewind a touch.

Our backyard was recently expanded (see here). The Beagle now has approximately 400% of the backyard sniffing space he previously enjoyed. Most dogs would be beside themselves with joy with this development. However, there is something about my dog. Perhaps it’s a hound trait; perhaps it’s unique to The Beagle. It doesn’t matter where he is, how much sniffing space there is, or what interesting stinky things might be present in the space he’s confined to. His first thought in a new space is finding the boundaries. The second thought is always, always, escape.

For instance. We have a deck off our bedroom upstairs. The deck is rather large, and has two drainage holes to let the rain run off the flat surface. There is a narrow ledge around the outside perimeter, which is coincidentally just wide enough to hold a beagle. The first time we opened the door and let The Beagle through, his first instinct wasn’t to sniff the ground or nose in that interesting pile of leftover cedar shingles. His first instinct was to make a beeline for the drainage hole. One misstep would have sent him straight to the driveway below. This resulted in a very comical incident where my exceedingly tall friend Doug leaned in almost a full 180 degree bend, holding the dog’s collar as he stood on the outside ledge while I ran to get a leash to drag his ass back through the hole.

So, it’s not unthinkable that his first instinct would be to escape the new backyard. And it only took him one day. I had been watching him like a hawk, knowing there was a spot in the corner that he could maybe slither through, although I thought it would have taken more effort. He’s been on a weightloss program recently, which apparently has its disadvantages. I looked away for 5 seconds. When I looked back, all I could see was his weasel ass running merrily across the neighbour’s back yard. On the other side of our fence. Heading directly towards the very, very, busy road at the end of our street.

Normally at this point of the morning, I am still in my pyjamas. By a fluke of nature, I had at least pulled on some grungy cutoffs and a T-shirt. So when I took off after my dog, when I started running around the neighbourhood like a mad fishwife, yelling “BEAGLE!” at the top of my lungs, the only things that people could have wondered about were my bare feet, unbrushed teeth and evil bedhead. Well, and general panicked psychosis.

The 20 longest minutes of my life ensued. I may have mentioned that the road at the end of our street is very, very busy, and cars go very, very fast. I ran through the backyard hedges, gardens and trees, trying to follow in the steps of a 35 pound weasel. Every time I could hear a rustle in the bushes, I’d approach and he’d immediately take off. I asked everyone I saw if they had seen a dog run by; I didn’t have time to chitchat, so as soon as I heard “no” I would uncharacteristically cut them off with a “thanks” and keep running. No joy. Nobody saw him. At one point, realizing that if I did find him I’d have no way to get him to follow me home, I ran back to the house (irrationally hoping he’d have weaseled his way back in to the back yard) and put on shoes, grabbed a leash and a handful of treats, then ran back out. Still, no luck. He was nowhere to be found.

Right when I was about to despair, just when I wondered if I should go home and call the Humane Society, I turned a corner and there he was. Standing on someone’s doorstep, trying to figure out how to get in to their house in order to get in to their kitchen. I saw him. He saw me. It took us both a second to realize what we were seeing.

Then his little head went down and his tail went low, wagging between his legs. He knew he was busted as he walked down the steps towards me.

I kneeled down, took his little head between my knees, and scratched behind his ears for a very long moment. The doorstep was right on the very busy street. All it would have taken was him seeing one dog across the road, and he would have taken off without a second thought. I clipped on the leash, stood up, and walked home.

The fence has been lowered. The first thing The Beagle did, of course, after the lowering took place, was go right back to Escape Corner. A Beagle can’t change his spots, apparently.