dog games

It was raining all morning just lightly, good for the plants. We got up and were so glad that our son came up and re-roofed the porch yesterday. It was a toss up for us because both days were supposed to be rainy. He and a friend decided to come up Saturday and do the best they could. Although the skies looked threatening for a long time the rain held off until long after they left in the evening. New roof and it got tested right away.

Our weather has fallen into a kind of tropical pattern with thunderstorms almost every afternoon or evening and hot humid weather earlier in the day. Today we had the cool rainy weather early and now it’s sunny and steamy. We have been blessed that none of the storms here have been bad; the bad ones go above and below us. And there has been some wild weather this year in my corner of Michigan. Huge hailstones, wind, tornadoes, torrential rains and lots of lightning have hit close by.

My tomatoes have quarter sized fruit and my corn just may be knee high by the fourth of July. We have been eating leaf lettuce, although that’s better when there are tomatoes to go with it. It’s been hard keeping up with the weeds but everything is looking nice in the gardens. My landscape roses are blooming and some daylilies. Evening primroses and dayflowers are nice right now.

I just came in from fence fixing again. We have 15 dogs on this farm, yes that’s right 15, and 14 of them generally stay within their boundaries, either their kennels or the large fenced yard. We have 8 foot fence around the yard with a board at the bottom and boards on the inside to discourage diggers. In the back of the yard, where the fence shares a boundary with the east pasture and there is a view of the back of the barn we erected a secondary fence 10 foot from the first fence also 8 feet high.

Despite this Ginger, our small red Jack Russell – Yorkie mix manages to escape pretty much at her pleasure. This wouldn’t be quite as bad except when she escapes she likes to kill small things, like kittens right now. Two days ago she jumped to the top of a rail 4 foot off the ground, walked down it to a spot where the top half of the fence wasn’t tightly hooked to the bottom fence and squeezed through. Then yesterday before the guys arrived for the roof she managed to get through both fences in the back by climbing one and digging under the second after squeezing between some privacy type fencing that’s there and the newer wire fence.

I, of course don’t see her do this, I go out and look for signs. She never tries to escape when she knows anyone will see her. The other dogs usually tell on her by barking wildly if they see her getting out. For a while her son Buddy was following her, but he is too heavy to climb well and most of her recent escapes have involved climbing. When ever we hear a certain kind of frantic barking we run to check on Ginger.

Our house dogs have a doggie door that they come and go from into the fenced yard. Ginger has always been a house dog but we are at our wits end. Next weekend weather permitting, we are going to rebuild the whole east boundary fence. It just seems like we are spending a lot of time on one little dog’s mischief. She is the dickens to catch once she gets out. She won’t come to you until she is tired. Her sole aim is to get to the kittens or ducklings or chickens or what ever she can grab. Her eyes light up and she seems to be having loads of fun, but it isn’t fun for us or whatever she is chasing.

In the old days a dog like this would have been destroyed. But she is so cute and loving to family and so smart I could never do that. I am afraid to find a new home for her because I would worry that she would get out and be lost. She is also great at darting through doors between your legs.

I have had the bad experience twice of finding homes for older dogs and having them run off soon after they got to the new home. In both cases I spent days trying to catch the lost dog with a lot of sleepless nights and anxiety. One of the dogs, a female named Peanut was gone for over a week in cold weather and when we found her was semi-conscious and near death. I nursed her back to health and she is still at our home, although her health has never been great after that experience.

The other was a six month old male, who took off on the elderly couple I placed him with by slipping a collar. He was hanging around their farm but wouldn’t let them near him. He had seemed happy with them when he left. I couldn’t coax him back either, although I saw him several times on their farm and spent hours sitting on the wet ground trying to convince him to come to me. Dogs get funny when they are scared and lost and sometimes even avoid those they know.

We ended up catching him by setting a live trap baited with hotdog. Once back inside the couple’s home he was again his loving, happy self. They decided they still wanted to keep him. They brought him back once to visit, and 3 years later he is a spoiled and well loved pet and now has the freedom of the farm.

Back to Ginger, if you are reading this and thinking she should be obedience trained- well she is. Inside or in the yard she will do anything I tell her. She completely ignores every bit of training when she gets loose. I know she gets bored. But she has a large area to run in and several dogs to wrestle with and lots to watch around her. They get to run in the pond area every so often, which is an even larger fenced area with tall grass, and water to splash in. Most of the dogs love that, Ginger just goes around looking for a way out.

It may be the attention thing, none of these dogs ever thinks they get enough attention. But mostly I think she is smart and has the hunting terrier instinct in her so strong she can’t help herself. It’s like working a puzzle to get out and then there’s that addicting thrill of the chase. The worse thing is that she is learning that when the other dogs “tell” on her the fun is cut short. So she is sneaking away when the rest are quietly lying at our feet and even the kennel dogs aren’t watching, for more fun before someone realizes she’s gone.

So we are playing this game of chess. I move then she moves. When I am through here in the office I will let her out of the room she is shut in and see how long it takes before she is loose. Sometimes days go by before she figures something out. Then we start all over.