As I was finishing with breakfast this morning I happened to see a small white dog in my back yard.  The neighbors in back of me have two dogs—the little white one and a large, young, rambunctious chocolate lab.  The first time I saw the little white dog in my yard, he’d found a loose board in the fence and managed to push it far enough out to squeeze under it.  He couldn’t get back, since the board had to be pulled out and while dogs are good at pushing, they don’t seem to have grasped the concept of pulling something.  I pulled the board out and he squeezed back through and I nailed the board down.  I thought that the problem was solved.

Then a couple of weeks ago the little white dog was back.  This time the big dog had been banging on the fence with enough force to cause the nails at the bottom of the board to come out.  Once he got it into that state, a couple more hits caused the board to break in the middle, allowing the little white dog through (who knows, perhaps he was sending in the white one as advanced recon for future operations).  I pushed the little dog back through, put the board back in place and put some bricks in front of that spot in hopes of discouraging further incursions.

This morning, though, when I went out to send the white dog on its way I discovered that two boards were now broken, the bricks were scattered, and the big lab was in my yard now.  I tried to coax him to go back through, but he seemed more interested in jumping and slobbering on me than going back into his own yard.  I even tried putting the little white dog back through the hole in hopes that he would follow.  No dice.

At this point, I thought I should get the dogs’ owner involved, so I walked around the corner to his house.  I rang the bell and waited a bit (it was around 8:15) and the guy finally came to the door, dressed only in shorts and with disheveled hair.  It’s obvious that I’d woken him up.  I explained that his dogs had broken through the fence and were in my yard and asked him if he would call them back while I blocked the hole.  When I came around my house to go into the yard I noticed that half a board was missing at the bottom of my gate and the gate itself was knocked halfway out at the bottom.  There was also evidence of digging.  I surmised that the small dog had dug out under the gate and the big lab had followed, knocking the gate all to hell in his haste to follow the white dog.  I noticed the neighbor looking through the hole in the back fence at this point and told him that it looked like they escaped by going under my gate.  I went out to the street and down a ways, but I couldn’t locate them.  As I was coming back he showed up in his Explorer and asked me how long they’d been out.  I guessed it had been less than 10 minutes, since they were still there when I left.  He then took off to look for them.

I still don’t know if he found them.  I haven’t heard them back there all day.  I noticed that neither of them were wearing collars, hence no tags either.  If they haven’t been found by animal control, they could be miles away by now.

It’s hard to tell for sure from the surveyor’s drawings, but I think the fence in back is on his side of the property line and hence his responsibility.  Regardless of that, though, since his dogs did the damage, he should be responsible for fixing that section of the fence.  But for now, I’ve temporarily nailed a piece of fencing over the hole.  It looks like crap, but it should keep the dogs from getting through there again.  Of course, that big, rambunctious lab could probably make a hole anywhere he wanted to with enough persistence.  It’s not like he’s using his head for much else…