My dog Brutie did something remarkable the other day. He showed me how he was getting out through the fence. It was eerie, almost as if he did it deliberately.
A year ago, he had gotten out, and I fooled him into revealing his escape hatch by going to the front yard and calling him. Heh heh. Got him.
This time was different. A neighbor called to say our dog was out. I let him in and then patrolled the back yard fence from one side of the house to the other. Nothing except a loose board on the south side. Even then, I questioned whether he could squeeze through it, or would even try. Too small, I thought.
A couple days later I looked out the front window and saw Brutie in the yard. “Bad dog!” I admonished. “Bad dog.” Brutie cringed and looked guilty.
“Okay, buddy, this is it,” I said, slipping on my coat. He cast a glance in my direction expecting punishment. “C’mon, dog, you’re coming with me.”
Together we walked the fence from one side of the house to the other, Brutie keeping pace with me. Halfway around, he stopped, his nose against the fence near the ground. “C’mon, dog, no time for that.” He refused to move. Exasperated I returned to where he stood. There, lo and behold, was a large hole in the fence. I hadn’t seen it. Brutie looked at me and tentatively wagged his tail.
“Good dog,” I said. He then proceeded 20 feet along the fence and stopped again, nose to the ground. “What the …?” I muttered. I couldn’t believe it, but there was another hole I’d missed.
The fence is mended now, but Brutie keeps giving me a strange look, one that says, “You owe me one.”