Oh, What a Day!

I had no clue when I crawled out of bed this morning with a bale of cotton in my mouth what an interesting day I was about to jump into.

Warned by the nurse at the doctor's office that I am not to eat or drink after midnight and then head straight to the clinic for some blood work, I tried to ignore the bale of cotton syndrome and headed for the bathroom. I brushed my teeth an extra long time trying to get the saliva to reach the back of my parched throat without much luck. I gargled with warm water and tried not to swallow any thinking this would take care of the problem. It did - for exactly 5 seconds.

I gave up and got dressed so I could be the first person down to the clinic and head for some serious liquid imbidationing. Ready a bit early I decided to check my email and goof off with things that would keep my brain occupied so I wouldn't think about wanting a drink of water or a can of Diet Coke to sting away the dryness in my throat.

My daughter had gone back to our fenced in back yard with our precious dog Sweet Pea (Who we try really hard to keep in the yard which is not an altogether easy thing. It means you have to stand next to the weak spot in the fence so she can't get under it and start wandering around the neighbors yard). We've got curtaining Sweet Pea's desire to wander down to a fine art and she hasn't escaped in ages. So I was quite surprised when I stepped out the back door hurrying to the clinic to be sure to be first in line, to see our darling girl standing at the bottom of the slight hill that is beside our back door. I call her and offer her a treat. She looks at me like I have to make her a better offer. I glance over into the back yard to see my daughter standing in the middle of the yard with a really befuddled look on her face. "She's over here!" I expalin. She then looks at me like I must be daft and continues looking around the yard for the missing dog.

I return to the kitchen to get a treat for the dog. Come back out and try to entice her my way. That's when I realize that poor Sweet Pea seems to have hurt her front leg since she is walking really funny, hobbling around on 3 legs. I call her again. She turns and looks at me again and I hold out the truly delectable treats for her to see. But there are way too many much more interesting things in the neighbor's yard to investigate. Now this incline between the two yards is really steep and there's no way I'm going to try going down it with my bad knees. I'd have to get down on my butt and scoot and once down I'd never be able to get back up.

But Jamelah has arrived on the scene now wondering how the dog got out. She couldn't have gotten our her regular way. I pointed to the gap under the gate. We've been wondering how long it would be before she tried it, well, we now have the answer to that question. We return to trying to get our girl to climb up the hill to us. She continues to ignore us. That's when we realize that her foot, evidently in crawling under the gate, is caught in the the training collar around her neck and she can't get it back out. Lucky break for us. On three legs she isn't going far.

Jamelah takes the plunge down the incline and Sweet Pea hobbles over for her treat and is rescued from her 3 legged problem. They start around the neighbor's yard instead of climbing back up to our door. I'm thinking my chance of being first is screwed.

I'm right. I'm thrid. Which still isn't too bad. I wo't go into the details of the rest of my morning, but the step out the door was just a foretaste. My stop to pick up mail at the post office was derailed leaving me to arrive at work late. Once there things continued being just a little off kilter all day long. But soon my 4 hour day ended and I headed home.

I decided, since we had a weak spot at the rear of the yard and a weak spot at the front of the yard and since I have no magic powers and can only be in one place at a time, to wait for my daughter to get home before letting Sweet Pea out. Once Jamelah was home, we THOUGHT it would be a good idea to let our dog out right away. She would be about to burst with needing to go pee. So, out to the yard we went. I stationed myself at the gap under the gate and Jamelah walked the dog to the weak spot at the rear of the yard before letting her off her leash. We were right about her fairly bursting; to get back out of the yard, that is. She made a beeline straight for me, but I was ready. But not ready enough. Because she hadn't gone under the gate, she had gone under the fence at an entirely different place and I wasn't standing there... and in a second, despite my loud, "NO!, NO!, NO!" she was gone again. This time unhindered by a foot being caught in her collar. She was soon soon out of sight.

We quickly got in the car and took off after her and caught her across the street. She quickly jumped into the car for her treat and we came back home. We still have to get the dog into the back yard to do "her business" but this time we know where she went out. So, Jamelah decided to stand at the front of the yard at the vulnerable place and I walked the dog to the back and let her off leash again; and off she went like a bat out of hell. To our chagrin she was quicker than us and she was under the fence and gone again. We jumped into the car and around the neighborhood we went. But she managed to evade us. She managed, in fact, to evade us for a long time. We thought we could hear her bark. We checked to only find a different dog in their yard barking. We began to pray to find her because we are now worried about how far astray she has gone. We hear a famliar bark closer to home, we investigate, but again it is the wrong dog. We hear another bark and head towards it and find our beloved Sweet Pea standing in our front yard with a quizzical look on her face as if asking "Where have you been?".

Into the car she bounded and this time we headed to Tractor Supply. We got a long tether, a stake and a harness. Sweet Pea's days of running amok in the back yard have come to an end. My brother in law came over and pounded the stake down good and secure. We tethered her up and she took off full tilt for the fence when she was rudely yanked back when she reached the end of the line. She was totally amazed.

The next 3 times "out" she spent most of the time crying and whining and we did a lot of crying with her, but finally she seems to have noW gotten the hang of it and has adjusted to the space the tether lets her go.

Jamelah is signing up for obedience classes for the fall and we are hoping by teaching her "come" and "stay" the tether will no longer be necessary. Truthfully, tieing her up was harder on us than on her. But, that's it for now. I guess we need the Dog Wrisperer to come visit us for a bit so we can teach our dog that she can't go beyond the fence.