Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

Running the kennel for the past five years has been a series of surprises. I thought, wrongly, that I couldn't be surprised anymore - than I had seen it all, and over come it all. Let's review some of my earlier shocks.


Ability to Destroy Chain Link Fencing
I was definitely surprised when a dog peeled up the chain link and decided to sleep on my shelving instead of in his kennel. I was really surprised when a huge dog pulled up and pushed herself through 5, count them, 5, kennel panels to get to the only other dog in the kennel. She didn't break into his run, she stopped in the kennel next door and took a nap.

Sometime after the run panels started to look like I crocheted them back together we replaced the light weight chain link with the 'keep the teenagers away from the power lines' gage.

Ability to Climb Chain Link Fencing
I just had no idea that dogs could climb when Maggie first scaled the corner of the play yard, ran home and sat on her back porch to be let in. (Lucky for me, they just live down the alley from me.) It is because of her that the corner of the play yard and all the runs now have welded wire panels on top.

I thought I had the climbers beat until I kept finding Chaser on my front porch. I couldn't figure out how he was getting out. His gate wasn't open. I hadn't left him out. There was no sign of having dug under the fence. After the third round of putting him back, I decided I'd better hide and watch this furry Houdini. Not only could Chaser climb the corner of his run, he could fit through the wire fencing at the top and then walk the top rail to the edge, jump down and head directly to my front door. A second layer of fencing a chunk of old rug finally contained him.

Inability to be Contained
This would be Cotton, a very large and very white Labrador. He ate a dog door. First, he pulled the frame off the wall and then he ate parts of the fiber board door. Cotton doesn't do well with containment. For all of Cotton's stays, we leave he run door open all night. Thanks to the CEU Welding Department, I now have nice metal doors for all my dog runs. I forgot about leaving Cotton's door open one night and found that Cotton managed to yank out of it frame but not to eat it.


Until now, Cotton had been my only escapee from a closed up at night kennel. Last weekend, I went down first thing in the morning only to find Boozer, the beagle, sitting in his outside run. He didn't seemed bothered by being locked out and I was planning giving my husband a very hard time about missing a dog when he did bedtime duty the night before. Only, he didn't leave Boozer out, Boozer GOT out. We don't know how he lifted the door and got under without it guillotining off a chunk of his tail. I am going to make sure he gets one of the kennel door that wasn't cut quite straight. I can barely pull those out. It is moments like this when I really want a 'kennel cam' - I still can't believe that cute little puppy is an escape artist.