About that fence

After Daisy crashed through the fence her first week home, Tom fortified the area with huge blocks of wood. No way could she barge through that. Ugly as it was, we let things be. We needed to concentrate on figuring out how to take her for walks without mutually spiraling into a panic attack.

A week later, she jumped it. It wasn't a little fence, either.



By then our desperate hunt for help had turned up a local dog trainer. She came over and took a long look at Daisy. "Big dog," she said.

She suggested that we tear down the wooden fence and replace it with chain link, topped by spiraling barbed wire. We did want to throw Daisy in jail,

but that seemed extreme.

We may have looked a little shocked. After more discussion, the trainer thought we might be able to put a rolling bar on top of the existing fence so no one could jump or climb over.

We knew we had to do something. One contractor after another came by, walked up and down the fenceline, pointed out the difficult challenges and gave us a stratospheric bid. We decided we'd have to wait until our next paycheck and went with the guy who had brought his small son with him for the estimate. The boy was great with a tape measure and had holes in his shoes.

Another bad choice. The fence turned out a little less than we had hoped for. Not so pretty, either. But it would do. We still had to nail lattice across the top, and our dear contractor had not made that easy. But Tom managed. After his amendments Ms. Athletic would not find this particular barrier so easy to scale.

Plus she had gained some weight after getting off what had apparently been a potato chip and candy diet and onto Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul. (Note to Diamond Pet Food: This name really doesn't work.) And we got rid of the worms. So leaping tall fences would be more of a challenge.

Daisy settled down and seemed to grow accustomed to the yard. We had nailed up some trim that finished the job, completely blocking the view into the yard behind us. But sometimes we would find her in a corner, staring at the boards. She would just sit there, her nose a couple of inches from the wood. I didn't want to make her any more crazy than she already was.

So we left her a peephole to look into the yard behind us. Two dogs and a cat live there. We hope she'll get used to them.


It's true, though, she has turned into a bit of a Peeping Daisy.

Mellow puppy

Daisy's now snoring at my feet, the perfect angel.

She has made quite a bit of progress. We can even leave the front door open and expect her to stay inside ... most of the time. Over the past few days it has been unusually hot in our foggy little coastal town so I let her lie in the doorway, giant head hanging outside, big fuzzy body inside. But today when she heard Tom start to drive away in my red Mini Cooper, she jumped up and tried to crawl under the fence after him. Even though he posted that idiotic video you see below here.

We took her to the beach for the first time earlier this week. Daisy seems to enjoy the sand in her toes. She'll sit watching the waves, and Tom thinks it has a mellowing effect.
Perhaps. She's been through a tough few weeks: red gooey hotspot on the chin, followed by an unmentionably awful digestive disorder likely caused by too many antibiotics. Then she wouldn't put weight on her left foot for two whole days and morosely plastered herself to the floor most of the time. After a manicure and some foxtail pulling, it took a day but she got better. We still have to cook her meals because of that delicate tummy: Today after our walk I boiled up 12 cups of 5-minute oatmeal, which will last a couple of mornings. Delicious with a little goat milk protein.

Sometimes I read back to the first days of our Daisy Diary for comfort:

3/16 PROGRESS DURING WEEK
*Began sitting alone on deck okay
*Began using yard without acting wild
*Follows me around and sits in the room I'm in
(Uh oh, that's not so good)
*Responds very well to "unh unh" and "no."

Really stretching there, eh? And then there's the next entry:

3/25 RELAPSE
Sally left downstairs door open, neighbors let dogs out below and Daisy snuck down and jumped over fence. Luckily dogs had gone back inside.

My friend Mara tells me that we have to expect it to take years. She worked every day with her nutcase dog for five years in order to get all the tricks down for her Canine Good Citizen test. That girl even achieved a four-minute unsupervised down-stay. Wow!!!