On Dogs and Yurts and Kennels

Dagny is too smart for her own good.

Today, while I was at Honoli'i, she figured out that if she pushes hard enough on the back screen door, it'll pop open, thus granting freedom to Lucy and herself. Normally I wouldn't worry too much, but since our neighbor has adopted a shoot-on-site policy in the interest of protecting his chickens, it's potentially a bad thing. I guess I'll be closing the main door from now on, just in case.

Fortunately, neither dog wandered very far, but given the type of reed grass tangled in her fur, it seems they explored toward the back of the property. Also it seems Lucy found something to roll in, but it wasn't the compost pile (thank goodness) and it doesn't smell too bad, and she's not too dirty.

Luana is too smart for her own good.

Being one of the dogs who inspired the neighbor's shoot-on-site policy, Luana requires a watchful eye. And when you're not around, she has to be in her kennel or she'll wander.

A few months ago, she got the urge to not be in her kennel, so she pried the chainlink away from the metal pole at the bottom of the cage and crawled out. We fixed that and leaned a palatte against the fence so she couldn't repeat the escape.

Lately she's been taking over Kiko's kennel instead. I always figured it was so she could see more, since it's on the end and has three uninstructed sides. I learned the other day that she had more sinister motives than that.

She actually pushed the entire cage so that it rotated about 20 degrees which made one corner rotate off of the concrete slab upon which the kennels sit, creating ample room for her to crawl out. Fortunately, she went to the yurt part of the property rather than toward the neighbor's place.

When she first did this, I wasn't home, and I thought maybe there was a gunshot or some thunder or something that freaked her out enough that she was bouncing around and it happened by accident. But a few days later the dogs were up and I was in the yurt, and Kiko was barking like something was going on, and I checked it out. Sure enough, she was moving her kennel again, and almost had enough room to get out.

Point of the story: If I'm ever locked in an inescapable prison somewhere, please mail me these two dogs. If neither can figure a way out, I'm sure the two of them working together will have no problem with it.