Dogs of War

Esther:

Ben and I don’t consider three teenagers challenging enough, so we also have three dogs with a strong prey drive. As long as you have a fenced-in backyard, dogs with strong prey drives are really no problem.

Except Bernard, our Lab/Boxer, is surprisingly light on his feet. He’ll spring clean over a 3-foot chain link fence just to sniff what’s on the other side.

So we stopped relying solely on the chain link fence and started clipping Bernard to a tie-down when he went outside.

Until he snapped the connector ring on the tie-down and jumped the fence again.

We considered building a privacy fence until we saw Bernard clear the 8-foot privacy fence of a neighbor. So that was out.

It didn’t look like we had any choice but to install an invisible fence. Ben spent the greater part of a day working on that and for the next few weeks we introduced our dogs to it and trained them on its usage.

But then Beasley, our German Shepherd/Basset Hound, learned she could punch past the initial discomfort of the static collar and be free. She taught Bernard how to ignore his own static collar, and he helped her escape with him over the fence. We weren’t sure how she had gotten over the fence as she lacks Bernard’s springiness, but one time she had dislodged a block wedged between fence posts to join Bernard on the other side and together they went on a merry neighborhood rampage. So we didn’t put much past her, either.

Once our canine Bonnie and Clyde had defeated the invisible fence, I began to see Beasley and Bernard as dogs of mythical proportions. Other people had sedate family pets content to stay inside when the front door was activated, while our dogs smashed through the double-stacked pet gates at the very sound of our front door opening. We had managed to find two beasts from some havoc-wreaking pack.

Not to be thwarted, Ben bought a 50-foot tie-down cable rated for 200+ dogs and secured it to the base of a 19-year-old bush. Bernard slipped his collar and jumped the fence.

Ben tried again with a leather and nylon harness.

Bernard jumped the fence with the cable still attached, then left the torn harness in the neighbor’s yard to mock us with its emptiness when we pulled it back over the fence.

At this point it was clear we would have to treat the dogs like prisoners and only allow short, supervised walks in the yard. The very first time one of our daughters was the warden in charge, Bernard promptly sprang the fence and Beasley expertly scrambled up and over to follow.

At wits’ end, Ben replaced the 50-foot cable with a 20-foot one and got Martingale collars for our escapees. Beasley and Bernard are escorted outside one at a time when they need to use the facilities and this is working well to contain them.

But we know they still hear the cry of havoc on the wind, the call to war against squirrels and skunks and outdoor cats, and we remain vigilant.

Ben:

The third dog in our trio of ruffian canines is Jinx. Jinx is a female West Highland White Terrier (Westie). The Westie is a Scottish breed with a white coat and is typically 10-15 pounds in size. Westies are tenacious, energetic, affectionate, playful, and fierce and Jinx possesses all of those traits in abundance. The Westie my parents owned when I was growing up also embodied all those traits.

After I showed Esther videos and articles on Westies, she was sold on the idea -- so much so that she sent me a link to a breeder one morning. By that evening, I’d acquired Jinx and brought her home. The breeder told me that she was a troublemaker and I knew she’d fit right in with our bunch. The entire family immediately fell in love with her.

Almost finished growing, Jinx looks like she’ll top out around the 10-pound range, which is on the smaller end of the spectrum for her breed, but don’t tell Jinx that. She’s a 100-pound dog in a 10-pound body. She loves mixing it up with the other two dogs, and when they wrestle and pounce on each other, Jinx is right in the thick of it. She’s very rough and tumble.

When Jinx isn’t diving into the dog pile to wrestle, she’s burrowing under covers, leaping off the bed, chasing her tail, and attacking empty plastic bottles. I’m also convinced I could contract her out to do demolition on houses being renovated. She chews on furniture, rips up linoleum, gnaws on baseboards, and could probably singlehandedly destroy an entire home if given enough unsupervised time.

Jinx does have one enemy though: dog bowls. They offend her.

Early on, they offended her by having the nerve to be empty. After she finished eating and/or drinking, she’d growl, then flip and chase the bowl around the kitchen. Once the evil bowl is cornered and she can’t push it anymore, she’ll lie on her stomach and bark at it incessantly. Lately though, the dog bowls don’t even have to be empty to piss her off. They just have to exist. If left alone long enough with dog dishes, she’ll grab one side in her mouth, flip it over (emptying the contents all over the floor), and run around with it, barking as she goes. In addition to contracting her out for demolition, I think she could moonlight as a K-9 unit. She attacks things as if they’d insulted her mother.

Jinx is also a superb breakfast companion. She’s better than coffee (or at least as good as). Our morning routine consists of taking Jinx out of her crate and taking turns holding her in the morning. While Jinx is still waking up and her frenetic Westie synapses haven’t begun to fire yet, she’s quite the cuddle bug. We’re treated to sleepy eyes, yawns, and nuzzles. In return she gets to clean our breakfast plates at the table. (Maybe we shouldn’t, but YOU try and say no to those big brown eyes!)

We have a motley crew of dogs. Things go awry on a regular basis and, more often than not, I find myself storming through the neighborhood in pajama pants and fuzzy slippers to resolve the latest issue. They’ve caused us sleepless nights, damaged property, and terrorized the neighborhood (apologies once more to our neighbors), but it’s how we like it. Because when the human world has terrorized you, there’s nothing like curling up with a pile of dogs who love on you regardless if you missed a payment, failed to fill out a form properly, or didn’t return a call.