We have the garage divided so the dogs have a straight run to the back door and there is a sort of fence to keep them out of the rest of the garage where we store things, including the dog food.
We have never had success containing Samba. When she was ten weeks old we decided it would be a good idea to put a gate across the kitchen doorway and keep her confined to the kitchen until she was trustworthy. Our kitchen doorway is five feet wide. I finally located a rather expensive custom gate that stretched across the doorway. Rob installed the hardware, we put up the gate, locked it and I put our adorable fluffy black puppy on the kitchen side. Rob and I stood on the other side to admire our handiwork.
Samba was not pleased. First she tried to jump, but the gate was too high. Undaunted, she ran to the table, pushed a kitchen chair to the gate, jumped on the chair and over the gate. In all she was confined for about three minutes. We must have had interesting looks on our faces as we realized she was a force to be reckoned with.
When she was about six months old Samba and I were at a friends house. My friend and I were having coffee in the yard and Samba and her dog were playing. The yard was safely enclosed with a four foot fence. I thought of something I needed outside the fence, walked out the gate and fastened it behind me. Samba couldn't bear to have me leave her, tried the gate with no success, so she jumped the fence. It was then we knew we needed our fence to be six feet high.
Back to this week. Confined to the garage, Samba decided to explore. She could see the dog food bags on the other side of the barrier, so she worked at it and opened the fence allowing all six dogs access to the open dog food bags. Tsar, who is a picky eater, didn't participate, but all the others had a party.
When I went to get them they were stuffed. Samba and Sky both threw up that night and the next morning Monty exploded. I won't go into detail, it's too gross. There were four open bags and each had been attacked.
Fudge and I have been working on our obedience course with varying results. One afternoon every time I called him to the front, he jumped up and licked my face. Not what the judges want to see. The next day no matter what command I gave him, he just stood there and looked at me as if he had never heard the words before. One day he laid down and rolled over, no matter what I told him to do. Today he was perfect and he knew it. When we finished, he jumped around and was so happy. I wonder which Fudge will appear at the trial, the one who does everything he's told or the one that doesn't speak the language. I have no idea how he'll behave. Should be interesting.
Today I'm trying to finish a few things. I started laundry yesterday and am almost done with that. Fudge and I have been practicing. I have two projects that I want to get done today. One requires the use of my new sewing machine. It's electronic and talks back to me all the time. I find it very frustrating. Maybe I should have taken those lessons. It seems whenever I'm rushed the machine chooses to complain about something. Today was no exception. I finally got the item finished. One of these days I'm going to have to devote the time to learning how to operate this thing.
Right now the dogs are all sleeping quietly here in the office, except Morgan who is in the garage. The electronic noises my sewing machine makes seem to set off her panic attacks. That, of course, adds to my tension.
It's almost dog dinner time and I'm starting to hear some discussion about it. Soon they'll chose a representative to come tell me that they're starving. I guess I should stop at this point and go feed them. Then I can get back to my projects.
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