There was a time when Miss Memphis Belle was just a quiet, shy and demure dog. When I brought her home, she was the total opposite to Murphy’s brash, surly assertive personality. She rarely made eye contact, her tail never stopped wagging. And she didn’t seem to even know how to bark, much less when. She was gentle and fawning and just the nicest dog you’d ever meet.
Fast forward to the other day. I’m sitting in my office doing something of no great consequence when suddenly the house echoed with a loud, repetitive banging noise.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
What the hell…?
Then it dawned on me. Belle was upstairs trying to get into the guest room. I’d closed the door to keep the dogs out, and she was using every one of her eighty pounds trying to forcibly hammer her way back in.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
“Dammit Belle! It’s a sliding door, you retard! It goes sideways!”
Alas, before I could get up there to deal with the K9 room invader, she’d managed to knock the door off it’s track. But at least she was in, so all was right in her world. Of course she doesn’t have to fix the door now.
And as for her escape antics, yesterday she hit a new low. She actually went over the pen fence while I was out in the pen with her and Murphy. I’d gone out to play with them for a bit, and I was watching her because I’ve been unable to figure out where she was going under the fence lately, and imagine my surprise when she went back to the stairs to the house, climbed up the stair rail like a ladder, turned to look at me, and then gave me a look that was the doggie equivalent of a friendly wave before she nonchalantly jumped over the fence and disappeared around the corner of the house, leaving me and Murphy to just look at each other with our mouths open. No shame in her game—she clearly doesn’t think that she’s doing anything wrong and that’s where the problem is. I’ve got to teach her that it’s a bad thing to leave the enclosures, and unfortunately, that means that I’m going to have to be out with her for as long as it takes to catch her doing this a few more times and issue the appropriate corrections.
Damn, I wish Murphy would just help me out and keep his chick in check.
Ouch... jumping the fence is NOT good! And just an FYI, they CAN clear an 8 foot fence if they want to...
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou should switch to Black Labs - go see Brigid's post!
ReplyDeletegfa
You need to at least post a video of this prior to going into the correction loop
ReplyDeleteROFLMAO
ReplyDeleteAs Belle says:
That'll LURN ya!
Durn ya!
Have you considered an invisible fence ? I got the "stubborn dog" model for the little black and white fence wrecking b*stard several years ago. It's effect is not permanent, but when he's wearing the collar and it starts beeping he doesn't get any closer to the fence, because he knows what comes next.
ReplyDeleteI was going to suggest invisible fence, too. Bouie was easier to trick -- Pepper simply attached a square of screen at the spot where Bou was most likely to try to jump the fence. Bouie believed the screen was a solid barrier.
ReplyDeleteWhen you mentioned that Belle had reached a new low, I think you meant to say a new high. ;-)
I can picture her expression.
The Ol' Swami sees a traing collar in your future... and Belle getting a new respect for the word "NO".
DeleteI do not envy you the retrainind job
ReplyDelete