The next day I let our dog Hammer out in the back yard. A little while later I was surprised to hear him scratching at the front door. I checked the gate outside, and sure enough, it was open--because the wind had knocked a post out of the ground, the post that the gate is supposed to latch to.
I knew that I would need to take Hammer outside on a leash whenever he needed to do his business. But I'm trained just as well as Pavlov's dogs were. Hammer rings a little bell at the back door when he wants to go out. Three times throughout the day, I automatically opened the back door when he rang the bell. One of the times, I didn't even realized I'd let him out until, several minutes later, he once again scratched at the front door.
The Engineer will be fixing the post, but it was anchored in concrete, and it'll take quite a bit of work...work he really doesn't want to do when the temperature is in the 20s. So this morning I realized I needed to find some way to get that gate closed.
I channeled my inner MacGyver, and with supplies I found in the garage and the house (concrete blocks and a broken fold-up chair), I got that gate to stay closed and blocked off Hammer's escape route.
I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm not much of a handy(wo)man, but I proved I could solve a problem. It's temporariy. And it's not very attractive. But it's doing the job! And I can go back to automatically opening the back door when Pavlov...uh, I mean Hammer...rings the bell.
5 comments:
The most amazing part of your story is that Hammer would come to your front door!! Any dog we ever had would, at the least little possibility of freedom, take off for parts unknown. It only happened 3 times over the years and we were extremely fortunate that there was a happy ending each time. But to have a dog come around to the front door??? That is one well-trained dog!
And on top of that he rings a bell to go out?????
Our dogs would either come and jump all over us or they would sit right in front of us and stare until we got the message.
WE were the ones who were well-trained!! LOL!!
Great idea!
And I know why Pavlov came back to the front door - it was wayyyyy tooooo cold for him to be adventuring around! Because I know him, he would have escaped, wouldn't he?
I'm very impressed that this story ends with Hammer knocking on the front door as opposed to exploring the neighborhood. Though, I'd think a name like "Hammer" gives him more street cred than "Pavlov".
Very resourceful!! :)
This reminds me of our next door neighbors. They have a cute, smart little shitsu, Bailey. She is a pharmacist and they own a drug store in a near-by small town, so they spend alot of time there and take Bailey with them. So they have a little bell behind the counter that Bailey can ring when he needs to go outside. She told me the customers always enjoy seeing how well trained Bailey has his owners. :)
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