Great Escapes!

spangey13

Last night I got home to find no husband and no dog and a message to say she'd got through a gap in the fence that can't have been more than 10cm. With the help of our neighbour luring her back with his children, I tackled her in my nice work dress after she'd been through streams, under houses, rolling in cat poop etc. Bonus calorie burn.

The longest we've had to chase her for was 3 hours.

I think she's managed to get out on us a total of 5 times. Probably not too bad.

Would love to hear other people's great escape stories :-)

DavidHusky

Hah - our dog isn't an escape artist (nor the 5 other huskies we've fostered this past year), but the first few months we had him he got out 3-4 times.

At the dog park someone opened both entry gates (supposed to keep at least 1 closed at all times) and we were on the complete opposite side and he got out - luckily someone was able to chase him for a bit to see which direction he was going (this is in a very urban area during morning rush hour traffic). He ran/trotted along sidewalks, crossed at intersections and only ended up going about a mile or two away... where he followed someone into a bagel shop!

flrancho

I have two Siberian Huskies and the male is bad escape artist.

The first time he escaped was when I was still in High School. My younger sister was outside in the front yard playing and I had been at the computer. For some reason, something made me get up and check to see where he (at the time a puppy) had wondered off to. I went around the corner to find the front door wide open and no puppy in sight anyway. Apparently, what happened is that my sister, while playing, had decided she had to go to the bathroom really bad and ran back inside and just left the front door wide open. Sure enough, the puppy wandered outside and had been missing for I don't know how long. We eventually did find him, though I don't remember how long it took.

Another episode came with my Aunt and Uncle coming down from Michigan to visit and I guess my male charging the front door when he was either going out or in and escaping. I wasn't home at the time, but apparently everyone chased him down in the car and caught him. This lead to a gate being set in front of the door so that he cannot charge the door to get out.

A similar event happened a few years after that which involved the male learning how to open one of the doors in the house leading out to the garage and escaping that way. Caught him again by going after him in the car. This escapade led to changing the door knobs in the house and fitting the door with a latch on one of the upper corners that he can't reach. He also knows how to open up the latches to chain link fences, so we have to be careful when they're left for boarding that all the personel remember to latch and lock the fences.

His last escapade was a few years ago in which the dogs behind us managed to push part a slat out of the bottom part of our fence. The male managed to squeeze his body through a six-inch opening and got in the other yard to play with the neighbors dogs, while my female stayed in the yard and was a good girl.

The female has escaped only once. We were going to take them to visit and play with another doggie friend. The female has always been pretty skittish and spooks at silly things. For some reason, she doesn't like going out the front door, but doesn't have a problem going out the garage door. The garage door was broken, so we had to go out the front. Upon me going outside the front door with her and turning around to close and lock the front door, she spooked at something and reared up on her hind legs and started backpeddling back towards the front door. Completely flipping out. She managed to slip her harness off and took off. I went after her, hoping to lure her to the car. No need. She'd simply run a big circle around the car after she'd escaped and then came right back to where I was standing at the car.

Hopefully these are the only stories I'll ever have to tell about escapes.