Too Smart

We've had our trials and tribulations with smart dogs, namely Prince. Usually Missy is rather feather-brained, although she does have her moments. Now, I'm not sure who is being the smart-alek, but it really bug the heck out of me.

The dogs are put in a chain-link fenced pen while we are at work. While I have been working 3rd shift, the Wonderful Spouse puts them in the pen when he leaves, and I normally leave them out there until I wake up in the afternoon (unless it is rainy out, then I let them in when I get home).

A couple of weeks ago, the dogs were in the pen. I went to bed, woke up and decided to do the dishes before I got dressed and brought them in. As I was doing the dishes, the neighbor decided to sight in his muzzle-loader, which obviously neccessitates his shooting the gun. Since Missy extremely dislikes gun shots, I decided to see how she was reacting to the noise. I looked just in time to see her get out of the gate. She ran right up to the deck, so I let her in and I yelled at Prince to "stay there" (he was looking mighty interestedly at the gate). Much to my surprise he stayed there until I got some shoes on and brought him in.

It was immediatly obvious that WS had not closed the gate correctly and I was shocked that the dogs didn't get out earlier (especially Prince as he could have made it through the opening without touching any of the gate). the reason it was apparent that WS was at fault was the the horseshoe latch was on the inside of the gate post. This is significant because if the dog had somehow managed to unlatch it, the gate would have swung outward (just take my word for it, the laws of gravity come into effect here). In addition, the latch fits snuggly; sometimes I have to kick the gate to jiggle it a little loose so I can raise the latch.

That night when WS got home, I explained how he hadn't latched the gate, and please be more carefull.

Fast foreward to this Wednesday morning. The dogs were in the pen when I got home that morning. I put away the groceries and was amusing myself by glancing out the window and watching the dogs play tag around some rocks and in/out of the dog house. Suddenly Missy made a bee line for the gate, and went thru it. Now I didn't see the whole move, but got her inside, then went to get Prince (who pleasingly stayed in the pen until I got there.

Once again WS had not latched the gate properly - damn! He swore up and down that he had made sure that it wasn't his fault, but the dogs couldn't possibly do that.

Thursday morning I got home and looked up at the pen to see if WS had left the dogs in the house (it was raining). I didn't see them, but did see a little streak of black go behind the retaining wall by the roses - headed toward the deck. I thought it was our black cat, Shadow, since he had been out every morning this week, just waiting to be let in.

I got 1/2 way up the path to the house when I looked back in that direction. From the back side of the fence that attaches to the house, Prince and Missy were standing there looking at me. This is not right as the fence and the pen are at least 60 feet apart from each other, not to mention the 20' difference in height. Both dogs greeted me at the back door when I got into the house. They were soaking wet, so I believe they got out shortly after WS left. If they had stayed in the pen until just before I got home, they would have been fairly dry because they would have stayed in the dog house while it was raining (yes, these dogs actually do use the dog house to get out of the rain).

I'm pretty sure that it is Missy that has figured out how to let them out. That is the shocking part because Prince is usually the smarter of the two. It doesn't really matter who it is, but it does have to stop.

So, the dogs get to stay in this morning, because obviously we can't keep them in the pen. I will look for a specialty latch when I get out of work, so that the pen becomes useful again. The only good thing is that this happened before we go on vacation, so we should have this problem solved and the people that will be feeding them won't have to deal with it.