At the rate we are going, El Destructo is going to tear down the house by the end of the week.
This latest escapade is entirely the fault of the humans around here. Blazer’s run is between two large trees in the back yard. If the tie rope is not on the outside of the trees, it will not allow the pulley to slide along the run. Instead the dog comes to a crashing halt when he gets to the end of the rope. Depending upon his speed, this can result in the dog simply doing a summersault (probably painful), slipping the collar over his head, snapping the hook off the end of the rope, or yanking the run out of the tree.
Wednesday afternoon, whichever of us brought him in did not make sure he was on the proper side of the tree. All we have to do is wave our arm to the left and tell him to “go around”, but that command wasn’t given, and the dog’s not an engineer. When I let him out before bedtime, I couldn’t see in the dark that the rope was around the tree, so he went racing out – something needed barking at – and pulled the run out of the tree, which resulted in the rope (and the pulley) sliding off the end of the run, and Blazer taking off after whatever was crashing through the woods.
A deer, probably. At least, I hope it was only a deer.
A couple of weeks ago I had purchased a strap that attaches to the dog’s collar. It’s about seven inches long, and has an LED light which can be turned to solid red, blinking, or off. It is called Niteize* and cost about $12 (I had a coupon) and is worth its weight in gold, as I was able to locate the dog immediately by the blinking light. The Rudolph effect. Reaching him, through the mud and the briars was another story, but I managed to get him back to the house. I left the pulley in the dog dish, on the counter, so there was no way The Squire could claim he didn’t see it.
In addition to selective hearing, I’ve noticed he also suffers from selective vision.
Thursday morning he took the dog for a ramble – Blazer doesn’t go far on an empty stomach. He did repair the run, but managed – heaven only knows how – to break the hook that attaches the rope to the run. Instead, he tied the rope around a post on the carport.
This morning, all I saw was the rope sprawled across the concrete, and simply hooked up the dog. Well, when you have 75 pounds of pit bull/greyhound mix on a fairly short rope (30 feet), it can be messy. The dog took off at top speed, carport post cracked, and the dog managed to break his collar. He pulled the ring that holds his tags and the hook, out of the collar. He ripped the stitching that holds the ring in place; dog collars are constructed of the same material as seatbelts. We’re talking some sort of force and speed, here, folks. The rope snapped back and got caught in a tree branch, and The Squire came dashing downstairs – barefoot. The “boom” was enough to wake him up, and he thought a tree had fallen on the house.
He went off to the grocery store to get a new collar, but the largest they had was for a twenty-five pound dog, so scratch that. We will have to stop at the pet store again tomorrow and purchase a new, and slightly larger, collar.
And see what other mischief Blazer can get into before the month is out.
*Unsolicited testimonial here. These little lights are phenomenal. They come in the strap type, which attaches to the collar, and several sizes of “fobs” for small dogs and cats. The fobs don’t blink, but they are very bright.
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