Lulled into a false sense of security, I was...

It's been peacful around the Lair for a while, with no dog breaks and precious little other K9 drama as of late. It's like they were trying to be good to get me to take my eyes off them for a bit...and it worked

On Friday, I was in the shower and the dogs were outside. I never used to leave them out in the yard while I was busy doing something else, but like I said, they'd been good for so long. I figured out that Belle was only tunneling out because she hates being left outside alone and her goal has always been to get to the front of the house so she'd get taken back inside. But since she learned to get in by scratching on the door several months back (and by "scratching" I mean clawing it down to bare metal like a freaking wolverine), we haven't had a problem. She scratches, I open the door, and they both come in.

Well this time I didn't show up and open the door, so she went back to the original method--she opened up a secret exit through the latticework that she'd apparently been working on for a bit and her and Murphy skated under the house and into the big world.

My first inclination that something was wrong was when I got out of the shower and heard familiar barking from the FRONT of the house and lots of loud yelling in spanish. Oh, that can't be good, I thought. Sure enough, the dogs her "treed" the entire construction crew that was working on the new house two doors down. They were all sitting up on the roof of that building yelling in what sounded like illegalese while Murphy and Belle circled the ladder and barked up at them in a manner that would have make Joe Arpaio proud. (Disclaimer: I don't know for sure that all of those non-English-speaking laborers that the contractor brings over in a cargo van each day are in the country illegally, but...)

So I hurriedly THREW SOME CLOTHES ON and opened up the door. Belle looks over at me and trots happily inside, her life goal achieved. Murphy on the other hand... "See ya, boss!" and down the street he goes. So I get to jump in the car and chase him around for a few minutes, going the wrong way down one-way streets and through two vacant lots before I finally manage to corner him in a third vacant but fenced lot. (Dammit dog, if I ever hit something in that tall grass and tear up the underside of my Toyota chasing you, we're going straight to that Korean BBQ in the Bywater!)

So yesterday, the latticework got replaced, and I fronted it with new paving stones that should keep digging paws from getting a start at it. Seriously, I've put in so much fencing and concrete just to keep these dogs in that my back yard is starting to look like the old border between East and West Berlin. Still, it looks pretty good, but I'm kicking myself for not going next store and offering the poor victimized workers a case of beer and telling them that I could make their DREAMs of a dog-free work-place a reality if they'd have all come over and given me half an hour each working on MY border wall.