Penny, the Houdini Dog
My sweet rescue dog was incorrigible. A born troublemaker.
I had jury duty, so I took Penny back to the school where, after adoption, she’d completed three weeks “basic training.” They’d deemed her a classic Beagle with a hound mentality — an independent thinker, stubborn, willful and ADD besides. On this day, she went into a chainlink yard for medium-sized dogs and, at day’s end, I went to take Penny home. Jury selection was continuing, so I needed to return tomorrow.
“So, how’d it go?” I asked. “Hmm. Well … ,” the attendant began. “Oh, glory! What happened?” He met my eyes, trying to appear solemn but plainly amused. “She was in the big pen with the other medium-sized dogs, and they were all getting along fine, but an hour later, I went to check on them and I couldn’t believe it.”
He found Penny up on the top rail of the five-foot chainlink fence, making her way along it to get to the end of the pen. One paw in front of the other, her forelegs wobbling to maintain perfect balance, with all the confidence and skill of a tightrope walker. “You mean to tell me she climbed up a five-foot chainlink fence and was balanced on the top rail?”
“Yep.” “Well, crap! How the hell did she do that?”
He shrugged. “She was already walking on the rail when I found her.”
“Oh, great God! That dog!” “I got to her before she made it to the far end of the rail, where she woulda been over and out … and gone,” he said. “But it was a close one.”
“I’m at a loss with her. She’s too clever for her own good. What am I gonna do with that silly dog?”
He grinned. “Well, I put her into a small pen with a couple mid-sized dogs — a chainlink pen with a chainlink lid on it.”
“Oh, that’s good. Well, tomorrow you better just plan on that pen with the lid again.”
The next day, I was excused from jury duty and went to pick Penny up. “How’d it go today?” I asked.
The guy said, “Oh, Penny was just fine. However ….”
“Oh, my loving Lord, what now?” “Well, about midmorning, when I did my rounds, I couldn’t believe it. One of the dogs that was in there with Penny yesterday — before I moved her to the lidded pen — was balanced up on the top rail of that fence, teetering paw over paw, making her way toward the end of the pen.”
“I don’t believe it!” I wailed. “Penny taught her escape technique to the other dogs!”
“Well,” he said, smiling, “hopefully that was the only one who watched and learned. I had to move that one into the lidded pen with Penny today.”
An incorrigible, sweet and loving escape artist. Always entertaining.
Nancy Lee finds plenty of entertainment at home in Indianola.
