This is a humorous, tongue firmly in cheek look at why not to let your pup run loose through the day unattended... We know better, but well, you'll understand when you read...
My mom fell and broke her arm last week on the ice while dad was inconveniently out of town, almost 300 miles out. We live an hour away from them. Anyhoo, last Saturday night/Sunday morning about 2:30am, mom called and said dad was in the ER, having more or less an anxiety attack and she wanted me to come stay with her since she wasn't supposed to be left along due to her arm. I left at 3am to return home the next evening about 7pm. Yeah, nothing funny about that. Dad's issue was stress combined with bad reaction to some meds he's on combined with quitting smoking. Plus mom tends to exaggerate things and is a drama queen.
My wife already had plans to go out of town for the day with the kids, not knowing exactly when she'd come back. On such short notice, we had no idea what to do with the dog, since I didn't know when (or if) I'd be returning the next day. Can't just leave the little guy in his crate indefinitly and we didn't have anyone on such short notice at 3 am to watch him (the dog of course, a 9 month old Border Collie that already has cabin fever for not being able to go out on long walks due to the crazy weather we've had the last several weeks.)
I couldn't take with me for fear of jumping on mom and there's nowhere to put his crate. Plus my wife couldn't take him with her, so we decided the only course of action was to leave him outside for the day and take his chances in our fenced in back yard. He has been known to tip over the garbage bins, rip open bags and scatter trash all over the yard in a relatively short amount of time, so we put the trash in the garage and anything else we think he could either destroy or hurt himself on.
Little did we know what he had planned... I got home and found our gas grill drug off of its pad and into the middle of the patio, tipped on end and utensils scattered across one side of the yard, propane tank dented and almost ready to pull the hose off (it was turned off at the valve on the tank.) At first I thought some kids hopped the fence and trashed the place as the grill cover was destroyed, some of the larger kids toys were misplaced and knocked over. A quick second look found the grill cover shredded on the other side of the yard with the culprit still chewing on it, our 30lb border collie. After looking at the grill, you could see the teeth marks in the wood.
How the hell a 30 lb. pup could drag this grill (about 5' wide and 4' tall) 15 feet to the center of the patio is beyond me (yeah, I know he probably tugged on the cover until the grill moved the distance and flipped on end... its still kinda funny though.) Given how the last few days have been, it wouldn't have surprised me to come home and find a singed, hairless dog and a smoking crater where our garage used to be. I'm sure the mushroom cloud would have looked lovely against the sunset and made an interesting police report and home owner's insurance claim, assuming it would cover a garage and part of the house been blown up by the dog.
Please don't razz me about this. We don't normally leave him outside all day or for any real length of time unattended when we're not home. This was a true emergency and we did the best we could. Fortunately everyone, including the dog, is fine. But this should serve as a warning of the potential destruction a dog like this can do and to NEVER underestimate the creativity and potential for disaster border collies and other intelligent dogs can bring...
My mom fell and broke her arm last week on the ice while dad was inconveniently out of town, almost 300 miles out. We live an hour away from them. Anyhoo, last Saturday night/Sunday morning about 2:30am, mom called and said dad was in the ER, having more or less an anxiety attack and she wanted me to come stay with her since she wasn't supposed to be left along due to her arm. I left at 3am to return home the next evening about 7pm. Yeah, nothing funny about that. Dad's issue was stress combined with bad reaction to some meds he's on combined with quitting smoking. Plus mom tends to exaggerate things and is a drama queen.
My wife already had plans to go out of town for the day with the kids, not knowing exactly when she'd come back. On such short notice, we had no idea what to do with the dog, since I didn't know when (or if) I'd be returning the next day. Can't just leave the little guy in his crate indefinitly and we didn't have anyone on such short notice at 3 am to watch him (the dog of course, a 9 month old Border Collie that already has cabin fever for not being able to go out on long walks due to the crazy weather we've had the last several weeks.)
I couldn't take with me for fear of jumping on mom and there's nowhere to put his crate. Plus my wife couldn't take him with her, so we decided the only course of action was to leave him outside for the day and take his chances in our fenced in back yard. He has been known to tip over the garbage bins, rip open bags and scatter trash all over the yard in a relatively short amount of time, so we put the trash in the garage and anything else we think he could either destroy or hurt himself on.
Little did we know what he had planned... I got home and found our gas grill drug off of its pad and into the middle of the patio, tipped on end and utensils scattered across one side of the yard, propane tank dented and almost ready to pull the hose off (it was turned off at the valve on the tank.) At first I thought some kids hopped the fence and trashed the place as the grill cover was destroyed, some of the larger kids toys were misplaced and knocked over. A quick second look found the grill cover shredded on the other side of the yard with the culprit still chewing on it, our 30lb border collie. After looking at the grill, you could see the teeth marks in the wood.
How the hell a 30 lb. pup could drag this grill (about 5' wide and 4' tall) 15 feet to the center of the patio is beyond me (yeah, I know he probably tugged on the cover until the grill moved the distance and flipped on end... its still kinda funny though.) Given how the last few days have been, it wouldn't have surprised me to come home and find a singed, hairless dog and a smoking crater where our garage used to be. I'm sure the mushroom cloud would have looked lovely against the sunset and made an interesting police report and home owner's insurance claim, assuming it would cover a garage and part of the house been blown up by the dog.
Please don't razz me about this. We don't normally leave him outside all day or for any real length of time unattended when we're not home. This was a true emergency and we did the best we could. Fortunately everyone, including the dog, is fine. But this should serve as a warning of the potential destruction a dog like this can do and to NEVER underestimate the creativity and potential for disaster border collies and other intelligent dogs can bring...
