Jaci Dawn

There’s no such thing as a bad dog, but a bored dog…

Harvey was bored. His people left and they took Murphy with them. Harvey wanted to go. He couldn’t remember getting car sick. He was sure he’d be a good doggie. But his people left him behind.

Two strange people came to the house. That was good. Harvey was happy that he had someone to stay with him. But they weren’t his people and he knew it.

For one thing, they didn’t have the upper hand. He knew that because they talked baby talk to him.

And they didn’t watch him as closely as his people did. His people never let him have any fun…

The new people were nice and petted him and said nice things to him, but they didn’t come out into the yard to see what he was doing. He liked that. When they called, he’d come running and he’d let them wash all the mud and dirt off of his chest and paws and he’d smile real big because they just thought he was a really dirty doggie. And he wagged his tail.

One day, he found a secret way into the Forbidden Garden. That big old rock that blocked the gate couldn’t stop him now! He could get into the Forbidden Garden because the bad neighbors finally fixed their fence and there was a gap that he could fit through, back behind the shady hazelnut tree.

He didn’t know that he scared the new people. When they found him stuck in the Forbidden Garden, they didn’t yell. They praised him! And they left the Forbidden Garden Gate open so he could get back out the next time.

Oh, what joy!

In the Forbidden Garden, Harvey could work at the pesky outer fence. He pulled a board off of it so he could see the kitties that crossed the neighbor’s yard.

He chewed on all the boards to make them shorter and he dug and he dug and he dug. He loved to dig!

OOPS! That board splintered! Oh well, now there were two boards off of the fence and Harvey could really see into the other yard. Too bad they weren’t side-by-side, because then he could just go over into the other yard.

He dug so hard that he could get his whole entire head under the fence. He really liked that the new people told him he was a good doggie when he came to the back door and they had to wash all that mud off of him. He was a good doggie!

He pulled four boards off of the fence and dug deep holes all along the border and he chewed up every one of the remaining boards. He was such a good doggie!

“Oh Hi, Mom! Are you looking at the hard work i did while you were gone? I was a good doggie! That dog sitter said so!”

 
The dog sitter also said, “Oh, I wondered why he was so dirty when he came in…” when Mom mentioned the fence.

In the days following our vacation, Harvey’s mom had to go over to the neighbor to reassure her that we would replace the fence. She’s in her 80’s and hadn’t been outside to notice (yet). She was very gracious, chuckled, even, and said, “Oh, I don’t need the fence, but I think you do.”

Touché.

Then came the note on the front door from the other neighbor, also elderly. “We’d love to help the dog, but we don’t know why he is barking. He just will not stop.”

Oh, great. I called and spoke to the son (who works nights and lives there). “Well, I was going to call the cops, but Mom said I should let her write you a note because you are real nice and she likes you…”

After I finished apologizing a hundred million times, I asked, “How long has he been barking like this?”

“Oh, just the last couple weeks.”

Great. The bark collar came off and stayed off.

Harvey had been so good about barking. I had to use the bark collar every few months to reinforce the rules: no senseless barking, but in two weeks’ time… ALL that went out the window.

He’s had the bark collar on every single day since the note on my front door appeared. I couldn’t apologize enough. I promised the man on the phone that we are *not* that kind of neighbor! We do not allow our dog to bark, on and on and on and on.

I haven’t priced the boards to replace the fence. I have secured the Forbidden Garden again and Harvey can’t get in there. More chicken wire has been applied to the perimeter of the yard.

Harvey seems quite happy, but he just has this wanderlust. He *has* to try to figure out how to escape. I think, for me, the worst was that two years of conditioning went out the window in two weeks’ time.

Next time: Harvey gets boarded out. It’s expensive, but it seems like the only alternative.

I told my husband that since Harvey is already four years old, it seems very unfair to consider giving him up because he eats fences. It seems to me that the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the humans watching the dogs. We are responsible. He is just a dog, albeit a dog with very bad habits gleaned in the first two years of his life. He will probably only live to be ten or twelve years old, which means we only have six to eight more years of this. That’s a very short time period in human terms, but a life time in dog terms.

Harvey loves us. He has a little separation anxiety when we go away (ya think!!!??). All I have to do is figure out how to stay ahead of him for the next few years, the rest of his life.

Obviously, a dog sitter isn’t working for us. She really thought she was doing a great job… she had no clue what he was doing behind her back.

Bad Harvey. Bad, bad, bad.