Houdini Lives Among Us

I'm prefacing this whole post with the fact that we do love our dog. Really, we do...

Five years ago, Steve and I made a life-altering decision.

We bought a dog.

For those of you who have read the book Marley and Me...it is our life.

In our defense, we were in the midst of a battle with infertility, so our emotions were raw and our judgements were a bit clouded. Never-the-less, we ended up getting a tiny yellow ball of fur who became our "baby"....

...the same baby who now weighs one hundred pounds and sheds her yellow lab fur over all creation.

We call the yellow beast Sydney and she truly does have her good dog moments. She's great with the kids and loyal to a fault. Man's best friend indeed.

But then she does have her bad dog moments too. Like when her tail (that is arguably the same circumference as a tree trunk) takes out one of the kids. Or when she goes outside and races in circles through the one square foot of mud in our backyard. Or when she barks like crazy at one random leaf on our tree that is teasing her as it dances in the breeze. Or when she slobbers us with her wet kisses.

Or when she's digging holes into our drywall.

Ah yes. The drywall. I didn't get a picture of the drywall because I was still in shock and didn't think to grab my camera. But just picture a HUGE patch of scratched white area right in the middle of my dark colored, beautifully painted foyer and you'll get the idea.

After the drywall incident, Steve and I decided that it was time to drag Sydney's old cage up from the basement and leave her in that during the work day. It's cozy, comfortable, and provides her with a safe place to spend the day where she has no chance of destroying the rest of my house.

The first few days in the cage weren't so bad. She'd go to her cage willingly, cry for a moment, but then settle down for the day.

By days four and five, it was taking Steve and I BOTH to drag her to her cage in the morning. Her howling could be heard outside our house.

Then on Thursday, I came home to find her greeting me at our back door. Tail wagging, tongue licking...greeting us...at the backdoor.

I'll admit, I was perplexed for a moment, but then quickly remembered that our cleaning lady was there during the day. She always plays with Sydney while she's there. She probably just forgot to put the dog back into her cage.

Except when I arrived home on Friday, I had the exact same back door greeting from the dog who was supposed to be locked away in her cage.

Because I'm nothing if not rational, I of course quickly called Steve at work wondering if perhaps someone had broken into our house. Steve assured me that no one would be dumb enough to break into our house and then let the beastly dog out of her cage. He instead suggested that in my rush to leave the house that morning, I probably didn't latch the cage securely. Hmmm...seemed more logical than my initial thought.

Saturday rolled around and as we were headed out for a dinner with friends, the dog got placed into her cage once again. As we were putting shoes on in the downstairs hallway, I realized that something upstairs (where the dog was in her cage) didn't sound quite right.

There was the sound of loud, crashing thuds. The sound of metal being rattled around. An unnatural yelping/howling sound.

Figuring it was a good idea to scope out the situation, I headed up the stairs.

Only to be almost knocked to the ground by a flash of yellow fur who was running down the stairs, right past me.

So yes, Houdini can apparently free herself from her cage. I mean seriously. Are we supposed to PAD LOCK her in there during the day?!?!?!?

Sydney - 1 Steve and Heather - 0

To be continued....