Stakeout.

What better way to spend a Tuesday afternoon than staked out in my car, waiting for his next move. No, I’m not trying to catch my fiance in “the act,” nor anyone else for that matter. My mission is more important than that. I’m sitting pretty in my car, across the street from my house, waiting to catch my damn dog, recently dubbed “Houdini.”

Meet Mo. He looks innocent enough, but don't let his cuteness fool you!

Why, you ask? Let me precede my explanation with some history on the matter at hand. Like I mentioned in a previous blog, Mo has been at my parents’ house for five long years. Before I moved home from college, my dog and I did everything together. We’d drive around Chico, and he’d sit patiently in the car while I grocery shopped (with the windows down, of course). Hell, I even took him to a few parties with me. Needless to say, Mo was attached to my hip. And when I left him alone, he was one sad pup. I thought his affection for me was the cutest damn thing ever, until I came home one night to a house turned upside down. My leather couches no longer had leather on them. My carpet near the door had been pulled back halfway across the room from him “digging” near the door. It was sad … my loyal pup suffered from separation anxiety.

When I moved home to Mom and Dad’s, Mo became an outside dog instantaneously. It took some time for him to adjust, but he finally settled into his new role as a country dog. He was fine for years, until I moved out of the house and into town, where I sadly discovered that I couldn’t house a dog, let alone a big, scary pitbull (such bullshit … but that’s another story).

Every time I came to visit, the little peckerhead would escape his pen. How he was doing it proved to be a mystery. The pen was about five or six feet tall and made of pig wire, which didn’t leave much room for his muscular frame to escape. And he certainly wasn’t digging through the dirt to get through, although we could see that he had tried and failed. We figured he had to have been using the pen and the side of the house as leverage to jump over and alas! freedom. So my Dad reassessed his pen, and decided to put hot wire along the top of the pig wire. Good idea, right? Wrong. Mo was persistent, and he continued to escape his little country prison (again, only when I came home).

One day my fiance and I were visiting with my parents in the kitchen, and Mo got out of his pen at least five or six times. My love, being sneaky, decided to hide around the corner and see how he got out. And let’s just say that this dog is one smart little fucker. He’d twist his body to the side, stick his two front legs, head and neck through the largest opening he could find in the pig wire. From there, he used his front legs as leverage to pull against the ground on the other side … and well, somehow he’d manage to squeeze himself through. If you saw my dog (he’s only 50 lbs., but solid muscle), you wouldn’t believe it to be true. Call it determination, but I believe that this dog is clever. And resourceful.

Fast forward to about three weeks ago, when we moved into our new home. I was so ecstatic to have Mo back with me that I forgot all of the tricks he had up his sleeve. We had a wedding to go to on the first night that we moved in, so we left Mo in the backyard. BIG mistake. We came home around 10 p.m. to see our dog chillin’ in the front yard, waiting for us patiently. Thank goodness he sat there undiscovered, for the simple fact that he is a pitbull works against him (either people are afraid, or sadly, there are those who will steal this breed to use for test fights). We knew we had to build him a pen in the side yard where he wouldn’t be able to get out. But like everything else, that costs money, so we decided to wait a couple of weeks before doing so. So for the time being, we blocked the areas where he dug his way out with concrete blocks, figuring that would hold him off for awhile.

Poor tree. Never stood a chance.

We were wrong. We quickly discovered that this yard was his playground, and Mo was determined to use all of the tricks up his fur to get out and find us when we left. The first day we went to work, we came home to a dog covered head to toe in dirt. Not only did he try to dig wherever possible, Mo would eat/claw at the fence in protest. At this point, we decided to hook him up to a cable, which we wrapped around the puny three-year-old trees trying to grow in our backyard. Another big mistake. Mo obviously didn’t like this, so he destroyed as much as the tree as possible (hence, the Charlie Brown tree).

Fortunately, my Dad offered to come by for a week straight to pour concrete and build a beautiful wrought-iron fence. That’ll keep him in check, we thought.

Ohhhhhh no. Mo had other plans, of course. There was one tiny area where the wrought-iron was bolted to the wooden fence along our property line, maybe five or six inches wide, where that little sucker squeezed his way through again. My fiance and I were at a loss for words. How in the world was he fitting through? Regardless of how he was doing, in a fit of anger, S. nailed a 2×4 again the fence. There was NO way he could get out now.

Wrong again. (We clearly underestimated the genius of this animal.) This morning around 10 a.m., I left home to go run errands and then meet my Mom for lunch in my hometown, about 20 minutes from where we currently live. Around Noon, I get a call from my soon-to-be sister-in-law, who works at the high school near our house. Turns out, Mo somehow escaped from his pen again, and decided to cross the street and hang out with the teenagers on campus. Incredibly, my SIL was roaming around campus on her golfcart, and just so happened to see a dog that she recognized. Long story short, she was able to round him up and thankfully my in-laws were able to come pick him up.

Some dogs would love to have such a luxurious pad!

Which leads us to where we are now. Staked out in a car, waiting for Houdini to strike again with another disappearing act. As I sit here and type, I can hear my baby alternate from howling, barking and pawing at the fence. Haha, this outta be good.

And there he goes again. I just heard him bump up against the side fence … and wait. Now I can’t see him. Where is that little shit? I swear to God, I think he just went into the neighbors’ backyard! Thankfully they recently moved out, and the house is abandoned. But still, where is he now?

Oh. My. Goodness. He went to the opposite side of the neighbors’ yard, used the fence as leverage to jump onto a plastic playhouse that butts up against the OTHER neighbors’ fence, and poof! He’s out! I can’t believe it. Here comes Mo, trotting up happily to the side of my car, tail wagging with a big smile on his face.

I have to give it to him, Mo sure does know how to get what he wants, and when he wants it. Ironically, one of the reasons why we picked this house was because of the size of the backyard. I figured that Mo would love it — enough room to run, play and be a dog. Who knew that all he ever wanted was to be wherever I was!

Spoiled rotten. I need Cesar Milan!