Dogs who escape are like true masterminds. Our family dog can best be described as that.
Sandy and I have had Luna about five years getting her as a pup. She was one of the ugliest I had ever seen — a coat which looked part tiger and part hyena.
Thankfully, she outgrew that look.
What she hasn’t outgrown is her ability to enter or escape. Two years ago we had our back porch/patio screened in. To escape, she knocked a hole in the door.
Late last fall, she did one better. With the door secured with a grate over the bottom half, she jumped through the screen to get inside.
After having the screen replaced, she decided to enter through the screen — again. She also went out another section of the screen.
Recently we purchased fencing to build her a pen area. Its approximately 12 feet wide and 40 feet long. A nice area with a roof above.
Within a week, she had dug holes under the fencing to get out. Not one, but two holes approximately two foot in depth on each side of one of the post and under neath the bar running across the bottom.
One of the holes even had a tunnel leading underneath the adjacent shed. Tunneling seems to be her thing.
She dug two tunnels underneath our concreate driveway that were about three feet in depth.
Having seen enough, I decided to try to change her ways. If she was going to dig her way out, she would have to dig under tires.
I dug a hole on each side of the fence for a distance of 16 feet Saturday. Thank God it was a nice morning with a breeze and a little mist falling.
I haven’t done much manual labor since beginning The Brantley Beacon and definitely none since a case of COVID between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2021.
Thankfully the soft, sandy soil was easy to dig in. But, two hours of hard labor wore me out.
I layed three tires down on one side of the post and two on the other side splitting the fence line above. Then I had to cover the hole up on each side of the fence.
My shirt had turned into a soaked beach towel. Gnats were everywhere.
I raked the area to make it look nice. Within two hours, Luna was out wandering in the yard. I found a soft spot missing a tie to the bottom bar where she escaped.
After fixing the problem, I thought, I awoke Sunday morning with Luna underneath the garage. I haven’t found her escape route yet.
• Rick Head is the Publisher and Editor of The Brantley Beacon and the Waycross Journal- Herald. He can be reached at beacon@btconline. net
