And he’s off again!
Remember the story of Arlo wiggling out of his collar when my husband took him out? Well, it happened again. This time to me. Arlo indicated he needed to go out so I stopped what I was doing, slid on my shoes, attached his leash to his collar and outside we went. He sniffed around. He stared at the neighbors fence hoping they would let their dogs out too. He sniffed around again. I told him to go potty so we can go back in. Nothing. He just stood there looking around. It’s 9 degrees out and I didn’t put on a coat since I figured it would only be a couple minutes so I decide we are going back in the house. We get to the back steps and all of a sudden Arlo pulls hard backwards. He wiggles fiercely and yep, you guessed it, the collar pops right off. Luckily he ran toward the gate into the back yard so I was able to rush toward him and usher him back into the back yard. He then begins to run laps around the back yard. Not just any laps, full throttle laps. So there I stand, no coat in 9 degree weather watching my Great Dane/Lab have extreme zoomies, freezing my A off; afraid to leave him alone since the back of our yard consists of arborvitaes in front of a 4 foot chain link fence. He has explored behind those trees many times and I’m not sure if he is aware that he could jump that fence.
I try to figure out a solution. My husband is in the shower so I can’t yell for him like he had for me. I keep getting him to come to me but as soon as I raise a hand he’s off again. About 10 minutes later, I’m frozen to the bone, my husband pops his head out and asks if everything is alright. I’m exasperated at this point. I wearily call out that no, things are not alright. I hear him hollar for my youngest son to get the treats and go outside to help me get Arlo back in the house.
After another 5 minutes or so, Arlo finally makes a fatal mistake. He goes into the corner of the fence and sits down. I tell my son to block his escape route and I go in for the kill. (Ok, I’m being a bit dramatic here. But, at this point I swear I have icicles hanging from my nose.) I quickly grab the nape of his neck. He tries to twist away but sees that my son is blocking his escape. He surrenders. My son puts his collar back around his neck but I don’t let go of his nape. We ackwardly walk down the driveway and into the kitchen door. And, I know you’re not supposed to do this, but I put him right into his kennel and shut the door. I am in no state to deal with him at that moment.
Don’t worry I only kept him locked in his kennel for about half an hour, long enough for me to calm down. As soon as I released him, I put his harness on him. That harness now stays on him 24/7. I cannot have another incident of him getting out of his collar again; and trying to put his harness on when he has to pee or is excited is a feet in itself. We also added a daily 10 to 15 minute off leash backyard time for him to get his zoomies out. Since the harness has a handle on the top he can’t avoid capture as easily. Also, he seems to understand now that this time is a regular occurrence so no need to fight it ending.
He’s a smart, stubborn, opinionated boy…just like his human brothers.
