The July Twelfth Breakout

This morning began with a sudden walk in the woods and then down the street-- me whistling and calling and peering into the ground-level areas for two fuzzy creatures, my fox terriers. They had "busted out." The kitchen door was slightly ajar to let in the welcome cool air. My husband was doing his morning checklist of coffee, juice and the "blue plate special. The two fur kids liberated themselves and were out before he realized it.

I was still fast asleep upstairs when I heard him call them and then I heard the back door slam. Then the sound of footsteps up the stairs. "They're on the lam. They were sitting on the lawn, but when I came out the door, they got their heads together, talked it over and then ran back into the neighbor's woods."

The dogs are a little more respectful of his discipline than they are of mine, and he knows they will not come if he is after them.

I staggered into some clothes and went out, whistling, clapping, saying, "Come to the house! Come to the house!"

This is not an unfamiliar activity , though I have not before done it so full of sleep. At the old house they would sneak under their fence and take off. I would always walk and call and clap and all that, and by the time I got back from my circuit around the neighborhood, inevitably they would have come back under the fence and would be sitting by the door. And they never seemed to feel guilty in the least.

So this is a different neighborhood but an old story and it has always ended up pretty much the same: they think they should be rewarded for coming back like good dogs, and I am disgruntled with them and conflicted about how to chastise them for going AWOL without making them afraid to come back the next time they run off.

I've read that mature dogs reach a point sort of like four year old children as far as training ability goes. I'm not so sure. Sometimes I think dogs are cleverer than that, even though we and they don't have a common language.

Maybe they confer with one another about what level of intelligence their person has, and act accordingly; they train us! Maybe they count on the uncanny bond that makes humans always go out and whistle and call, and makes dogs always go back to the house.

Time for a coffee!

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