Irish!

Kennel with 4' extension. Note - yesterday we deconstructed the extension and put it on another kennel made with heavier gauged wire and dig out wire. Can anyone guess why?

There she is; attached to her chain and cable. She'll get plenty of house time and I only wish I could trust her enough to let her run loose under the current circumstances.

  
It's not like I wasn't warned. When our 2 week old puppy made her way out of the whelping box not once, but twice, I should have known we'd be in for a challenge.

I received some wise words from a young friend when told of Irish's current behavior. "It's kind of like a pregnant teenager missing all the fun, so once that's over with she wants to get out and have some fun!" That's exactly what she planned to do.

I got a call from Neil as I was making a visit to friends in New Hampshire. "Irish jumped out of her kennel". Not surprising but so frustrating to hear. Neil thought she may have wanted to be away from her now 12 week old puppies so she moved Irish to an adjoining pen with her grandma Tuloon. He watched out the window as she looked up at the top of the kennel and with two steps forward and one big leap, she was over the fence. She didn't run away. She just began to play and run in big fenced play area. So while I was gone, Neil set out creating an escape-proof pen for our dear sly fuzzy friend. And we thought this was the end.

I returned home and things got back to a new normal. That's what we call it when we get tossed a curve ball and have to restructure things, be it a dog behavior or what have you. We had Girl Scouts over and as we were preparing to go outside to meet them there was a knock on the door. "Your dog's loose". Geez. Irish had jumped the play area fence that she had been in with her puppies and a few other dogs. She was now just checking every one out. She came instantly like she always does and we tossed (not quite tossed) her back into her kennel. My new thought was that I would now have to be outside with her whenever she went out to run free and play.

Alright. So now the Girl Scout event is fully underway and we head into the back yard to let her and the puppies out for some socialization. Irish immediately left all of the fun and jumped the fence. Again, she didn't run away but just down to the exterior of the dog kennel where our helpers were finishing up with dog chores. That's it. Irish MUST be "grounded" until we move up north and build her special pen. This also means we will be revamping the new play area to include ten foot fencing.

So, until the move, Miss Irish, will be in her newly renovated six foot pen with a four foot extension on top, in the house or on a chain attached to a 100' cable for her every day exercise. She's done too much teen aged partying and is putting herself at risk. She's grounded.