Puppy paraphernalia

When Soldier Son first adopted Tank, the poor animal was emaciated; we assumed that his previous owners  hadn't been feeding him well enough, and SS was sure that plenty of good food would fix him right up.

We discovered the dog did have pretty weird eating habits (he still sometimes lets his dish sit until someone is willing to stand over him and watch him eat), but within a few weeks we also discovered another possible cause of his condition: he climbed over a 4-ft chain link fence and went for a run around SS's neighborhood.

A few weeks later, SS graduated from college and took a job in another town, where his living arrangements didn't allow him to take the dog, so Tank moved in with me. Sure enough, he quickly figured out how to scale my 4-ft fence, and I found myself buying a load of new posts and another round of mesh to build the fence up to 6 ft.

I somewhat disastrously took Tank to my brother's the weekend of a family get-together that made the entire crowd mad at me, but the worst thing for me was that I felt sorry for Tank being stuck on a chain (which, unfortunately, had spikes that had put scars on probably the whole family), and he took off from the nice, open field where I let him loose straight for the highway a quarter mile away. It's hard to run after a large dog when your heart is in your mouth because you're afraid he's going to be killed.

Before the end of the summer, SS moved to a location that allowed him to have the dog, so Tank moved away. The new digs had a 6-ft fence, so all seemed well until somebody left the gate ajar and Tank took off. SS scouted the neighborhood in search of him until someone noticed and asked him if he were looking for a big brown dog. This time Tank had used his fence-scaling skills to get into the neighbor's privacy fence through a gate that was only 4 ft tall.

The job just didn't fit SS, so he and Tank moved back in with me. The makeshift fence worked pretty well to contain him, as long as no one left a gate or door ajar. One morning he took off while I was home alone with him, and I went out occasionally and called him in hopes that he'd give up and come home. On one trip outside, I called his name, and a voice across the back creek called back, "Have you lost your dog? I've got him!" About the last thing I had expected was for the beast—or his mouthpiece—to answer.

In the dead of this winter, I got a frantic text message one day from NS:

Red alert! We have a breach! Do not let Tank out! Repeat! We have a breach!

When I called him back, I discovered that a board had come loose in the lower part of the fence and Tank had gone through it to chase down a rabbit. I think the rabbit got away, but so did Tank, and NS didn't want him in the backyard again until we got out—in the cold and the middle of the night—to fix the fence.

This spring, Darling Daughter and I were discussing the two biggest cases of doggie disobedience at my house—Tank's running away and Alpha Bitch's barking—when DD convinced me to spring for a couple of shock collars to try to straighten them out. Number One Son adjusted the black one for Tank and the red one for AB, but for some reason he only put Tank's on. When they went out later for their evening round of fetch, NS tossed the ball out of the usual playing area and told Tank to leave it alone. When he didn't, NS hit the button on the controller, and Tank jumped back. NS retrieved the ball and threw it again, but Tank wouldn't go near it until NS showed him that it wasn't the ball but the location that had led to the shock. This could work!

Meanwhile, a neighbor and I laughed one afternoon at Tank's fear of a Slip 'n' Slide. I had started a remodeling project, and in an attempt to keep dust from floor tile removal from flying all over the house, I had hung a tarp over the opening to the stairwell and the Slip 'n' Slide over the doorway to my bedroom. I hadn't been terribly surprised that Tank didn't try to go through the tarp because he's never been one to go upstairs alone, but we did laugh when he stopped short at the Slip 'n' Slide. Chain-link fences can't hold him in; a Slip 'n' Slide apparently can.

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to check out the shock collar myself. I had inadvertently left the door between the house and the garage unlatched before I opened the garage door, and Tank shot through it. Aha! I thought; I'll just go get the controller, and when he runs by, I'll zap him!

I dashed back in the house, grabbed the control, and took off after him; he had—amazingly—stayed pretty close to the house, and he'd stopped for a potty break.

Buzz! I pressed the controller.

Nothing.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

Nothing.

Buzz! Buzz!

Nothing.

I followed him around the near part of the neighborhood for a while, completely deflated that the collar hadn't worked but assuming his regular collar had somehow wedged between the shock points and his neck so he wasn't feeling anything. I went back inside and got a leash and hoped he'd give up and come on home. A man was mowing a lawn down the street, and I asked him to point Tank my way if he happened to run by.

Sure enough, within the hour the man had caught him and brought him home. I ran my finger under the shock collar and saw that it was pressed firmly against Tank's neck. But the battery was dead.

I pulled it off, plugged it in, and told Tank I didn't like him very much right now.

Meanwhile, I've been trying really hard to get NS to keep the baby gate up in the downstairs hallway to give Miss Kitty some space to herself while she's in the house with the dogs. Kitty doesn't mind Tank too much when he has a toy in his mouth or when he's lying down, but if she starts moving, he starts chasing, and you can see the fear on her face. I don't think he means to hurt her, but when he catches up to her, he tries to "pet" her with his big old clumsy paws, and she's not impressed.

The baby gate helps. I had bought it years ago to keep our previous dog penned in our out of different parts of the house, and I've used it in various places since then, but separating Kitty's end of the house from Tank's seems to be about its best use so far.

And now I've discovered that about the best way to keep Tank from getting out the back door is to leave the baby gate in place: he'll scale chain-link, he'll jump privacy fences, he'll break out through loose boards, but he respects the baby gate. He watches me swing my legs over it several times a day, so he has to know he could hop over it, but he respects the baby gate. I'll never figure it out.

That doesn't solve all the problems, though; he's been out the front windows, and if anyone slips, he's still out the front door, so now I've learned to keep an eye on the shock collar light to be sure the battery is charged and to put it on him so the light is always visible if it's charged.

And it hasn't stopped Alpha Bitch from barking. I still haven't had the courage to put her collar on her and zap her. She's reached the point where she knows that if she barks too much, I'll eventually get her attention and stuff her in her kennel for time out, but she also knows she can pretty much bark herself out before I get her attention. And she's too much like SS: when he was little, nothing I did seemed to punish him, and time-out was just a chance for a nap.

Enter my friend Dr.B. NS is doggie sitting for her this week while she's on a business trip to South Africa, and she gave me the grand tour of her latest routine for dog care before she left. One of her newest additions is a can of compressed air with a sort of air-horn fitting that makes a hissing sound like the one you hear when you disconnect a compressor from a car tire; she's been using it to try to get her Schnauzers to stop barking. The gizmo costs more than I'd expect to pay for any other can of compressed air, but I figured it was worth a try.

I got home with it on Friday and popped it a couple of times out on the driveway so I could be ready when I used it. (The packaging and Dr. B said it made a noise dogs don't like, but it didn't tell me what kind.) It seemed innocent enough, so I took it inside and set it on my desk.

Sure enough, a little bit later, AB started to bark. I let her get about two barks out, told her to stop, and pressed the button. She snapped to attention, checked to make sure she was okay, and came to my chair as if to ask how much trouble she was in. But she had stopped barking.

The neighbors started coming home from work, and she had started to back at one when I fussed at her and hit the button again, with the same result: no more barking. (Tank also seemed to respond to it, although he didn't seem as upset. The directions said cats are much more sensitive to it than dogs are, so I worried a little bit about Kitty, but I think she was just grateful to have AB stop barking.)

For the rest of the evening and most of Saturday, if AB started to bark, I'd let her get a couple out and tell her to stop, and she stopped immediately. Saturday evening, I had gone out to check on the sprinkler system when a neighbor strolled down the street. I heard AB inside barking and yelled for her to stop—then nearly fell over when she did.

Sunday morning she started to bark at something—probably a rabbit in the front yard—and didn't seem to want to stop, so I gave her one warning and hit the button. Worked like a charm.

I'll be away from the house for a couple of days, so I don't know how long this will last, but I may not have to zap her. And if I can remember to keep the baby gate up before I open the back door, maybe I won't have to zap Tank.

But I think I'll keep his collar charged, just in case....