Sweetums The Escapee

Around 6:30am yesterday morning, I got home from the grocery store and it was eerily quiet. Aside from the fact that it was still very early in the morning it was odd that there was absolutely no whining or barking coming from the backyard. While my husband grabbed the groceries out of the trunk of my car, I went out back to check and see what our 18 month old puppy was up to and why she wasn’t making any noise. I had a bad feeling that she was not going to be there, it was entirely too quiet. 

Sure enough when I checked our make-shift dog run and called for her, “Sweetums…Sweetums?”, she was gone. I pulled the crate that doubles as the entrance to her dog run out of my way to check to see how she may have gotten out. That’s when I saw that she had dug a hole underneath the fence and obviously escaped. I had no idea how long she had been gone. I put her out at 4:30am and then got ready to go to the grocery store and left. I couldn’t remember if I heard her fussing right before I left for the store at around 5:00am. So she had to have escaped some time between the hours of 4:30-6:30am. 

The worst part of her escape, was I felt somewhat relieved. Lately she has been so incredibly hard for me to take care of and I feel awful for feeling that way. It’s just that she’s one more responsibility for me and when I’m feeling overwhelmed with trying to juggle everything else in my life, her high energy and relentlessness is exhausting and frustrating all at the same time. Her absence was the relief of one less thing for me to take care of, one less thing on my never-ending to do list. 

But then a moment later, I felt like a bad person for feeling that way and hopped in my car in search of my dog that I wanted and begged my husband for. You know, my life would probably be so much easier, if I just listened to my husband occasionally. He’s full of sound, well thought out advice. Who’d a thunk? Maybe one of these days, I’ll hear him. As for now, since I didn’t listen to my husband, I have the responsibility of finding this dog that I committed to. 

As I slowly drove the route that Sweetums and I usually walk or bike, in search of my wild Husky-Lab mix, I called my mom. She agreed, maybe it was time for me to give her up. When I got her, I was home during the day with her. Now with my new job, she’s crated all day and when we get home from work and school, our evenings are packed with more to dos and poor Sweetums gets brushed aside, moved from her crate to her dog run until after we get the kids to bed. Then she comes in and hangs out with us for an hour or two, then unfortunately goes back in her crate to do it all over again the next day. It’s no wonder why, she’s began to bark incessantly every time she’s in her dog run.

The good thing is, I do walk or bike with her most mornings, but I feel like lately that’s not enough. She’s full of pent up energy that comes out in crazy bursts of jumping on the boys, the couch, and the kitchen counters. She steals throw pillows and the boys stuffed animals, then plays her favorite game of “catch me if you can” in the house and sprints laps through our teeny tiny house. If she’s in the backyard she runs so fast, when she turns, she looks like she’s running sideways.

Since, I didn’t see her along our usual route, I decided to search the block behind our house. As I came around the corner back to our street dog-less, I saw our neighbor who waved me down. I yelled out the driver’s side window, “do you have her?”

She nodded yes and said, “I have her in the backyard. She came to my door again. I was pretty sure she was yours, but she wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to read her tag.”

“How long have you had her?”

“About 20 minutes or so.”

This is the second time she has ended up at our neighbor’s house. Last time my husband left the back gate open when he was taking care of the yard and didn’t see her wonder out. Thankfully this particular neighbor probably loves dogs more than humans and always has an open door for our sweet Sweetums. This neighbor also likes to talk, so when I went over to get Sweetums I knew that I would be there awhile talking to her. I brought up the thought that Sweetums has become too much for me to handle. I was thinking maybe she would offer to keep her. She lost one of her dogs last fall and mentioned that she was out looking a new dog.

Of course this time Sweetums really showed herself and how wild she can be. My poor neighbor had to put her dog in the bedroom, because he was getting growly with Sweetums. Sweetums was relentless with her wanting to play and was in his face too much. As if that wasn’t enough Sweetums had to go and jump all over this retired woman’s kitchen counters and knock stuff over. So that was a negative. Our neighbor does not want her, but when we left her house she was brainstorming ideas of families where Sweetums may be a good fit.

I came home with Sweetums and told my husband, “we at least need to give Sweetums the backyard again, so she can run some of that energy off. Keeping her confined in the dog run, especially after being crated all day is not doing her or us any good.” 

We had originally built the dog run to keep her from tearing up the yard. We were also trying to get our grass to grow back. Her pee destroyed a large portion of the grass and over the spring and summer, my husband was working on bringing it back to life. Now that the grass looks great, it’s time we let her out to enjoy it. I originally told him that’s the least we can do until we can re-home her. 

Then we had a really good day with her yesterday afternoon. I watched as the boys had a blast playing in the backyard with her. For once she was playing nicely with them and they were playing nicely with her. That’s when I thought to myself, I can’t get rid of her. She’s part of our family. I’ve made the commitment to her, now I’ve got to figure out how to work with her.