Lofty Aspirations

One starts to contemplate the meaning of life when one realizes that one's burning desire is to simply outsmart one's dog.

I've had this dog for 9 years. She's a very intelligent animal, which normally pleases me. She has this horrible habit of digging herself out of the backyard, however, and nothing I can do seems to be able to stop it. She'll go for a few weeks, and I'll think I've won, and then poof! She's out again. She can squeeze herself out of the tiniest spaces, too. I'd gotten to the point where I never let them outside unless I was standing there watching them. You can imagine how tedious that can be, but we did it for a few years.

A few months ago, we installed a doggie door. She's getting older (she was at least 2 when I got her from the pound in 2000) and she was having a hard time holding it all day while we were at work/school. I figured she could go out to relieve herself, and stop peeing in the house. Yeah... she promptly started testing her Houdini skills again, so the doggie door got closed up. That rather defeated the purpose of installing it.

Now that I've been home more in the daytime and able to see her favored area of mischief, I've been trying my hand at foiling her escapes again. I thought I had it figured out; we went almost 2 weeks with her having free access to come and go and she never got out. Success! But no. One day I was gone for the day again, and came home to find her sitting on the front porch, waiting for us.

This time, it's been a week. She's tried several times to get out, including two straight days of nobody being home, but it appears to be working. I really hope so... please send thoughts of "containment" our way!