Friday, December 26, 2008

Canine Wanderings

Last week Ben found a beautiful, gigantic, and very gentle greyhound wandering the neighborhood. Her name was Daisy and we called her owner (who was away from home and didn't know she had escaped) and entertained her until he arrived. That reminded me that Annie has done some wandering of her own lately.
Considering where we live and the busy streets that surround our house, it's a miracle that Annie has survived her wanderings. Once she ran off and while we were all out looking for her, someone came walking up the street with her on a leash. One morning she squeezed out the front door as I was getting the kids off to school and when I ran after her I asked a woman in the parking lot across the street to hang out with the kids until I came back. Another time she ran across 2 neighbors' yards, across a busy street, and over to the church before Ben caught up with her. She is extremely fast...she even caught a squirrel the other day. I was amazed. I screamed at her to drop it, and miraculously she did and it limped up a tree.

Back in November I was sound asleep at 6 a.m. and I suddenly jumped up and yelled to Ben because I thought Annie had run off again. He said, "She's right here...just go back to sleep." It must have been a premonition because not more than 10 minutes later he was yelling up the stairs that she had run off. I went out looking for her and didn't see her anywhere, so we drove around looking for what we thought would be a squished dog on the road. We didn't find her so I called Animal Control and left a message. As soon as the office opened I got a call from the animal control officer and she said, "It looks like your dog made it all the way to Boston this morning." What??? It turned out that she ran out the end of our dead-end street at the intersection and a guy sitting at the light saw her. He said she ran across Route 30 a couple of times so he followed her and she went right to him. He drove around looking for someone looking for a dog (she had taken the tag off her collar) and didn't see us, so he took her to work at an elementary school in West Roxbury. She had such a fun adventure that she escaped AGAIN about a week later and was found by a neighbor.

I have since purchased a wireless fence and when the weather improves I'm going to start training her to stay put.
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