judy
Well-known member
Tonight it happened again, for the second time. Zack disappeared again. it was 1am and i was sleepy and about to go to bed, writing an email, and i became aware that zack was not around. he is just always around and almost always active, busy, easy to be aware of his presence, and when he's outside in the back, i'm aware of his absence, but it's always very brief, he doesn't hang out in the yard, he goes out to pee and poo, and to jump up as high as he can against the fence, and to bark. so when he's outside he's usually active too. and i knew it was too quiet for too long tonight, too long being 5 minutes at most.
i got up and walked to the sliding door, knowing he wasn't in the living room where i was, he is too busy, if i walk, he gets up and comes with me. I called him, which i never need to do when he's outside. No Zack. No sound. This time, i didn't panic right away. I decided to systematically look everywhere, because last time, i looked everywhere and there is no way out. so i knew i had to find him if i kept looking long enough. i had just finished looking inside the house and was going to go outside and systematically cover every inch of the backyard, grumbling a bit about being kept up so late, and also feeling the fear rising inside that he wouldn't be there, that he really had found some secret way out that i would not be able to find, and he would be really gone this time. I was preparing to go outside in the back, put on shoes, got the flashllight and picked up his leash in case my search led me out to the front, beyond the backyard, out in 'the world.' and as if he heard the sound of his leash, he came running up to me, happy and excited like we were going for a walk. This time, unlike the last time, there was some telltale dirt on him, showing that he had been someplace dirty, not his usual backyard trip.
Also he was acting kind of weird, he was excited and he wouldn't come near me to let me pet him, or hug him, he wanted me to play ball or play rough with him, he was nudging his ball at me, and was growling in a playful way but more intense than usual. He's never done this in quite this way before. I wanted to get a hold of him so i could look at the dirt on him, to see if it held any clues but he wanted to play in a fighting kind of way. I would not play with him, i went outside, he came outside, still jumping around in a playfully aggressive way, jumping toward me, then jumping away as if to say "come on, let's fight," and "you can't catch me, haha," it was like he had been on some kind of adventure that had pumped up his testoserone, whatever's left of it, or which made him feel brave and strong, and made him want to go alpha on me or something.
(incidentally, later i discovered he had peed on the bathroom rug. i am seeing this not as an 'accident,' but as deliberate marking at this point).
i was going to just go to bed and search for where he could've been tomorrow, but he kind of gave it away, we were in the backyard and he started looking in the direction of the tool shed, it's one of those molded plastic things, taller than me, with two doors on it and shelves and a padlock, and i have it up on flat gray bricks, about three inches thick. Next to the shed are some plastic shelves that have stuff on them and some scraps of wood, it's an area where i looked for him when he was missing before and saw no sign of him, between the woodshed and the shelves that are up against the fence. Before i saw him looking in this direction, i saw another clue--when i first got him, he went behind the shed, it's a very narrow space but because the ground isn't flat (i'm on a hill) the shed doesn't fit snugly against the house, there's a few inches and when i first got him, he went behind there and got stuck, and i got him out and blocked it off. When he disappeared the other day, i put a plank of wood there to block off the space, even though he's too big to ge back in there now, but that plank was moved over tonight. I wasn't sure about it, it's only a few inches, did i leave it like that before?, but then i saw him looking at a certain place on the ground in front of the shed, and then i could see he had dug under the shed on the side that is toward where the shelves and wood scraps are.
Earlier, i had seen a small flat pile of dirt on the edge of the gray bricks that i have in front of the shed that are there to keep mud from going inside the shed when it rains, there was a pile of loose sandy dirty, and i absentmindedly thought "i'll have to sweep that," and didn't really focus in on it, it was an annoying mess and i didn't think about how it got there. :lol:
so now i know where he was. The question remaining is, ok, i can see him being in a hole for a few minutes, but he is too busy to stay in a little space like that for almost an hour like the other time, and not making any sound. Was he stuck? was it too narrow, he couldn't turn around when i called him and he just sat there not knowing how to get out? Or, was he finding something in there that was satisfying him, like a bone to chew on or a stick, some old thing that died in there, something that was engrossing him for 45 minutes? Tonight it was only for 10 or 15 minutes that i couldn't find him....
Tomorrow i'll have to figure out how to block it off so that he can't dig there anymore. It could be dangerous, something might collapse on him and he'd suffocate. but more worrying is the idea that he has discovered digging and might find the one place where he might be able to dig out. or another place i'm not aware of. i will be getting bricks to cover the dirt where he might dig. in this case, he has dug underneath the bricks. He has never dug before. the little monster. :yikes he's such a...dog.
what next?
i got up and walked to the sliding door, knowing he wasn't in the living room where i was, he is too busy, if i walk, he gets up and comes with me. I called him, which i never need to do when he's outside. No Zack. No sound. This time, i didn't panic right away. I decided to systematically look everywhere, because last time, i looked everywhere and there is no way out. so i knew i had to find him if i kept looking long enough. i had just finished looking inside the house and was going to go outside and systematically cover every inch of the backyard, grumbling a bit about being kept up so late, and also feeling the fear rising inside that he wouldn't be there, that he really had found some secret way out that i would not be able to find, and he would be really gone this time. I was preparing to go outside in the back, put on shoes, got the flashllight and picked up his leash in case my search led me out to the front, beyond the backyard, out in 'the world.' and as if he heard the sound of his leash, he came running up to me, happy and excited like we were going for a walk. This time, unlike the last time, there was some telltale dirt on him, showing that he had been someplace dirty, not his usual backyard trip.
Also he was acting kind of weird, he was excited and he wouldn't come near me to let me pet him, or hug him, he wanted me to play ball or play rough with him, he was nudging his ball at me, and was growling in a playful way but more intense than usual. He's never done this in quite this way before. I wanted to get a hold of him so i could look at the dirt on him, to see if it held any clues but he wanted to play in a fighting kind of way. I would not play with him, i went outside, he came outside, still jumping around in a playfully aggressive way, jumping toward me, then jumping away as if to say "come on, let's fight," and "you can't catch me, haha," it was like he had been on some kind of adventure that had pumped up his testoserone, whatever's left of it, or which made him feel brave and strong, and made him want to go alpha on me or something.
(incidentally, later i discovered he had peed on the bathroom rug. i am seeing this not as an 'accident,' but as deliberate marking at this point).
i was going to just go to bed and search for where he could've been tomorrow, but he kind of gave it away, we were in the backyard and he started looking in the direction of the tool shed, it's one of those molded plastic things, taller than me, with two doors on it and shelves and a padlock, and i have it up on flat gray bricks, about three inches thick. Next to the shed are some plastic shelves that have stuff on them and some scraps of wood, it's an area where i looked for him when he was missing before and saw no sign of him, between the woodshed and the shelves that are up against the fence. Before i saw him looking in this direction, i saw another clue--when i first got him, he went behind the shed, it's a very narrow space but because the ground isn't flat (i'm on a hill) the shed doesn't fit snugly against the house, there's a few inches and when i first got him, he went behind there and got stuck, and i got him out and blocked it off. When he disappeared the other day, i put a plank of wood there to block off the space, even though he's too big to ge back in there now, but that plank was moved over tonight. I wasn't sure about it, it's only a few inches, did i leave it like that before?, but then i saw him looking at a certain place on the ground in front of the shed, and then i could see he had dug under the shed on the side that is toward where the shelves and wood scraps are.
Earlier, i had seen a small flat pile of dirt on the edge of the gray bricks that i have in front of the shed that are there to keep mud from going inside the shed when it rains, there was a pile of loose sandy dirty, and i absentmindedly thought "i'll have to sweep that," and didn't really focus in on it, it was an annoying mess and i didn't think about how it got there. :lol:
so now i know where he was. The question remaining is, ok, i can see him being in a hole for a few minutes, but he is too busy to stay in a little space like that for almost an hour like the other time, and not making any sound. Was he stuck? was it too narrow, he couldn't turn around when i called him and he just sat there not knowing how to get out? Or, was he finding something in there that was satisfying him, like a bone to chew on or a stick, some old thing that died in there, something that was engrossing him for 45 minutes? Tonight it was only for 10 or 15 minutes that i couldn't find him....
Tomorrow i'll have to figure out how to block it off so that he can't dig there anymore. It could be dangerous, something might collapse on him and he'd suffocate. but more worrying is the idea that he has discovered digging and might find the one place where he might be able to dig out. or another place i'm not aware of. i will be getting bricks to cover the dirt where he might dig. in this case, he has dug underneath the bricks. He has never dug before. the little monster. :yikes he's such a...dog.
what next?
Good at lest you now known were he went thank heavens :jmp: :mexwav: :lol: Aileen
