I always write about my five children but I very rarely write about my two dogs. Probably because if you have five children, you sort of emotionally neglect your pets or at least you don't pamper them the way you would if you didn't have a bunch of children.
We adopted Patches Peaches about ten years ago. She is a beautiful Jack Russel Terror, I mean Terrier. She was given to us by an older couple who had been unsuccessful at training her. OK, this should be a red flag. If a retired couple who spent all their time with Patches could not control her, why in the world would I believe I could do a better job when Adrian and I were both busy working people with two small children and a baby on the way?
We lived in a small apartment at the time and trying to exercise Patches was a nightmare. She tried so hard to escape every chance she got and the city we lived in would not tolerate dogs on the loose.
Well, when we finally finished building our house up here in the country seven years ago, we were excited Patches would finally have a fenced in yard to run around in and get her energy out without bothering people so much. Adrian and his friend spent a week building a pretty wooden picket fence around the back yard. I kept leaning over the top deck and hollering, "Those pickets are too far apart! Patches will squeeze right through them!"Adrian assured me the pickets were fine and that the way they were spaced out was all planned and did I have any extra money to buy more pickets? No? Then be quiet and quit being such a control freak wife always telling her husband what to do and bla bla bla.
Well, when the pretty fence was finally finished, we celebrated and let Patches out to her big, new yard! And what do you think happened?
Like a bullet, she leaped right between the pickets and ran off.
Damn.
Well, then Adrian and his friend went out and bought chicken wire or was it rabbit wire? I don't know. They spent another day and a half nailing wire all around the fence. It was back breaking work, really. I leaned over the rail on the top deck and said, "You should have listened to me..." But I don't think they really wanted to hear that. They also didn't want to hear me say the rabbit wire wouldn't work either. God, I hate always being right. It's a burden, really.
But the next day, we let Patches out again to her new, big yard and she seemed to stay in the fence, merrily running around and frolicking like the happy dog she was.I stepped out on the top deck to check on her about fifteen minutes later and I hollered for Adrian, "Um, honey! Come here! Patches is climbing the chicken wire and... Wow! There she goes! Right over the top of the fence! She's gone!
So, then Adrian went to the Home Depot and bought new pickets to put in between all the other pickets. He came back complaining how he just spent a fortune on new pickets and since Patches had cut her foot and leg on the chicken wire, we had also spent a hundred bucks at the vet to get her stitched back up. Plus, by this time, Patches had been out to meet some of the neighbor's dogs and no one seemed to appreciate a bleeding dog crawling under their fences to play with their dogs.
So, after Adrian went around nailing pickets between the other pickets, we let Patches out once more. I must mention Adrian had to nail the pickets on the inside of the fence this time so as to put a barrier on the rabbit wire so she wouldn't climb up it.
Well, Patches did great for about an hour. Then, when I went to spy on her from the top deck, I found her doing something pretty incredible. She was using her teeth to get out the nails, thereby allowing the extra picket to swing to the side, then clawing at the rabbit wire and jumping right through the pickets and running for the hills once more, busting stitches and all!
Well, this went on and on and Adrian spent a total of a million hours fixing this fence any way he could think of. Some days, Patches stayed in and some days she did not. I was beginning to think Patches really didn't like us. We brought her inside every evening, but we wanted her to have a yard to run around in too.
Well, to make a long story short, and I realize this is already a long story...we invested a lot of money in a radio fence. Patches wore a collar that would shock the hell out of her if she got near the fence. By this time, we had adopted a friend for Patches, a somewhat retarded miniature dachshund named Bailey.
We actually adopted two miniature dachshunds but the other one got ran over when a windstorm had blown open the gate and I didn't realize it when I let the poor little puppy outside to go pee. We "replaced" that puppy, which was Jolie's puppy, by the way, with another miniature dachshund but when she was about 10 weeks old, she ate some weeds outside that had been sprayed with weed killer and she died two days later. It was horrible.
Anyway, Patches convinced Bailey, the surviving retard, to somehow eat the collar off of her and Patches would then dig her way to freedom thereby destroying the annoying- as- all- get- out- to- install- electric wiring. Adrian spent many an hour at Radio Shack buying spools of speaker wire to splice it and repair it on a regular basis. But eventually, we solved the problem and Patches stayed in the fence for like an entire week.
Then Patches started getting creative. Sometimes she would jump on the trampoline so hard as to catapult herself soaring over the fence, falling on the other side and then running for her life. If the kids left their big wheels in the back yard after racing down the hill, Patches would stand up on the back of it and push it to the side of the fence, climb up and jump over.
Presently, the radio fence is really broken. A gigantic rat who was as big as an opossum climbed up a bush and jumped up to the upper deck where the radio box was, ate up all our bird seed and ate up all the wires coming out of the radio electric fence housing as well. Damn rat. It scared the crap out of me one night. It was trying to stay dry under the grill and I had walked out there to get my shoes which I had left out on the deck. That thing looked at me, reared back like an attack cat and jumped three feet in the air, caught a branch on the big bush and ran away. My shoes are still out there 'cause I am scared of seeing that monster again. It's been two months.
Now, Patches is running amok. I could really care less except that she is known to terrorize the poodles who live across the street. She also chomped on my next door neighbor's cat's head when it was just a kitten and shook it up really badly. The cat is still living, but permanently brain damaged. I wonder if that is why they are moving to Florida? The poodle owners don't even talk to us. Can't say I blame them.
Oh, Patches! What are we going to do with you? Poor Adrian has no more energy left to fix the fence again. She got out today because she rolled a basket ball over to the fence, stepped on it and jumped over. I mean, really... she wants to be free. Is that so wrong?
Latest update: Adrian recently hammered in some nails all around the top of the fence so as to act as barbwire. The nails didn't bother Patches too much although the scraped up her tummy which was pretty pitiful, actually. I felt cruel. And Since Patches stays inside all the time now and just gets let out to go potty, you would think we'd be smart enough to just take her on a leash and walk her. Why don't we do that? Two reasons, really. Number one, we are lazy, I mean busy. Number two, Patches will NOT go potty in front of ANYONE. I am serious. She has always had real modesty issues.
Adrian spent so long hammering all those little nails around the whole fence and it was all for nothing. Patches learned a new trick to avoid scraping her belly. She freakin' learned to climb a tree and then just jump over to the other side of the fence. I saw her do it. Man.
So, then Adrian spent a small fortune on more wood and did some more fence work and cut down all the bottom limbs of the Leland Cyprus tree she was climbing. Patches has not escaped since. She is completely depressed. She has had her tail between her legs for days. She won't even come upstairs to hang out with us. She feels the agony of defeat for the first time in many years. (I am knocking on wood as I write knowing there is a good possibility I have spoken too soon.) And do you know what the moral of my whole long story is?
Adrian should have listened to me in the first place. Like I said, it really is a burden always being right.
P.S. BREAKING NEWS: We celebrated Fischer's 10th birthday yesterday and left the dogs outside. When we got back, we were greeted by a very muddy dog on our porch. Patches dug her way to freedom. At least we know she had to resort to digging (she doesn't normally like to dig because she hates being dirty) because she is unable to go OVER the fence. I know we should surrender but now it's a game. A game that has been going on for 10 years, I might add. I am starting to wonder if we are getting something out of this whole thing. Maybe we just like the challenge. Maybe we know if Patches didn't have a problem to solve, she would be too bored to live. Maybe that's true for us too. Hmmm... never thought of it that way.
