The Shed, Part 1: Jailbreak

Back by popular demand (by which I mean, “none at all”) is an update from Greenwood Manor. For the last six months, Brayden and Lucia have lived with us as she started her new job, he started A&P certification school, and they looked for their own house. More important, their two dogs, Bowie and Benny have lived with us. They are affectionately called “the horses” around here because, to Dobby, though they are fifty-pound Portuguese water dogs they’re roughly the size of horses, and Dobby has a terrible fear and loathing of horses.

The horses have a lot of energy, especially Benny who lacks any impulse control. And throughout their time here, they have escaped out of the house or pulled their leashes off our hands or what not, and our neighborhood Facebook page has featured a post roughly once a week that has gone like this: Just saw two fluffy black dogs dash through my yard. I called to them, but they wouldn’t come. They even still had their leashes on them. Hope they find their way home! Lucia finds this mortifying. I’m not so easily embarrassed, but I understand, so we have tried to keep them in check.

I recently took all three dogs for a hike in the acreage behind our house. Juggling three is a challenge, but on this particular morning, they were uncommonly well behaved, did not try to yank my arms off, did not try to trip me on ice patches, and did not try to pull me down hills on my face. I rounded the corner near our shed to head for home, and I was prepared to send a text of praise to the family for how good the dogs had been when, thanks to Dobby, all hell broke loose. Dobby was on an extendable leash so he could run out ahead and not get trampled by Benny (Benny loves to trample him . . . hence, “horses”). Dobby bolted for the shed, and crawled under it while still on his leash. Benny lost his mind and tried to follow, pulling with all his might. Bowie wasn’t to be left out, and he dashed around one of the three trees next to the shed, and before I knew it, my cheek was smashed against tree bark, my right arm around the trunk with Bowie extended off it, my left arm around the other end of the trunk with Dobby’s and Benny’s leashes extending off of it.

A highly technical and realistic rendering follows, so you can see it clearly.

I had to let Benny go. I winched his leash off my hand, then tried to round the tree and jump for it, but he knew he was free, and off he went. Seeing his brother run free, Bowie promptly lost his mind and began barking and whimpering and leaping. I pulled Dobby back around the tree and hiked up to the house, cursing the whole way. I got Bowie and Dobby inside, then filled a metal bowl with food to try to entice Benny back, then headed back out.

As I stood on the driveway to shake the food in the bowl, I suddenly saw a white streak dash past me—Dobby Houdini had somehow slipped out the door behind me, and off he went. I watched helplessly as he dashed across two yards and disappeared. The problem with running three to four miles twice a week with your dog is that, when he breaks free, he can run three to four miles at pace and not wear out, which means it’s nearly pointless to follow him.

I actually opened Facebook at that point and looked at our neighborhood page, knowing that if someone hadn’t posted yet, it was only a matter of time. No post just yet, but I began to hear dogs barking all over the neighborhood, starting nearby and progressively getting further away. It wasn’t hard to figure out where either dog had gone.

Dobby has a weakness, though. We keep a snow shovel on our back porch, and he has an insane hatred of that thing. Scrape it across the porch, and he goes berserk, barking and growling and chasing it. With chasing being unrealistic, I climbed to our back porch and, like the fool I am, began scraping the shovel across the porch with one hand while I shook the bowl of food with the other. Then I opened the sliding glass door, hollered to Lauren, confessed the disaster, and begged for her help. She took my place as the shovel scraper, while I headed around to the side of the house again.

As I did, Benny bounded around the corner from the front corner. I grabbed his leash and, with a smattering of swear words, ushered him inside.

I headed back out, and as I rounded the side of the house, I saw the white streak dashing back toward me. Yay! I called to Dobby and asked if he wanted to play soccer, his favorite game, in order to ice the deal. He charged excitedly . . . until he pulled even with the shed. Now, he paused. Now, he looked around. I offered soccer again. And with a turn of his head, he said, “Nah. Peace out, sucka,” ran up the trail to his left, then raced off the trail and into the marsh beyond the trail.

WTAF.

Dobby is small enough that he could be hawk, owl, or coyote food. So I headed out to the trail and into the woods, calling him the whole way, offering to play soccer. I followed the trail rather than where he went, figuring he might come to my voice. Then I thought, “There’s snow still out there in that marsh—he’ll leave tracks and I can follow those.” So I doubled back, and when I reached where I saw his tracks, I was about to turn into the marsh when a saw a white flash to my left . . . at the shed. He was trying to crawl under it again.

I paid little attention to that last fact—I closed on him quickly, scooped him up, and hauled him up to the house, unleashing a mild torrent of obscenity.

For the remainder of the week, every time we hiked, the dogs tried to crawl under the shed and I yanked them away, managing not to get banana’ed around a tree. Brayden and I took them out together one of those times, and I speculated that maybe a squirrel had dashed under there; he thought it was field mice.

The truth was somehow worse. For that, you’ll have to wait till part 2.