Channeling Houdini...

Well, it seems that my new dog Sadie is channeling Harry Houdini, the great escape artist. She managed to escape and disappear twice yesterday.



The first time she slipped out of her collar while on her dog run and, well, ran. We searched for over two hours and couldn’t find her. That’s because we live in a small town with friendly, helpful and well-meaning people. A lady on her way home from work found her wandering about two blocks from our house in the downtown Milford area and picked her up. The lady took her out to a local vet clinic that is about 4 miles north of town.


I would never have looked out there or thought to call there, but I did finally think to call the local police and asked if they had any lost dog sightings. Sure enough they had, since the vet had called them to report a found dog that fit Sadie’s description. We went to pick her up and had her “chipped” while we were there. Now she has a microchip that most vets have scanners to read. That chip will give them a number that will allow them to contact me. I suspect that this will be money well spent.


So, anyway, I next went out and bought one of those dog halters that look to be much harder to get out of and put it on her. Less than an hour later she slipped out of that while on her overhead run and was off again. This time my wife, while our looking for her, encountered a couple who were driving around looking for her someone who might be missing a dog. They had her in their van. She is so freindly that she'll hop in with anyone. Again she was picked up less than two blocks from home.


Now she has both the halter and a collar, both tightened up snuggly and attached to each other. If I did much more, she’d end up looking like Hannibal Lecter when they transported him from prison in the movie”Silence of the Lambs”. I don’t even know if they make little, doggy straight jackets or not; but, I’m resolved not to end up pushing Sadie around on a furniture dolly like Hannibal.


So, lesson learned today. Sadie is a cutie, but she’s also a hound and hounds like to escape and run away. They aren’t so much running away as just running – on a scent or just out of curiosity. We’ll have to watch her like a hawk when she’s out on her run.


She also showed her true (hound) colors when we encountered a particularly annoying squirrel today on one of our walks. I didn’t know that dogs could climb trees, but she sure tried. It didn’t

help that the squirrel took great sport in coming back down the tree a ways to taunt her. If I thought she’d come back I’d let her off to really chase some of the pesky squirrels that we have around here. I have no dou

bt that she fast enough to catch a few of them.

I guess we’ll need to schedule a few more trips to the bark park to let her run off some of this energy. Like a human baby, she’s at her cutest when she’s curled up asleep on the bed. So, Sadie, Sadie, Pretty Lady is now Sadie, Sadie, Houdini Lady. We can’t trust her anymore, but we can still love her.