Digging Is His Unhealthy Obsession

October 1st, 2012

Things were going so great with Drake.  He was fitting in with all of my loverlies and learning everything I threw at him.  Had to go on a dog sitting job and I had been making plans to have a dear friend of mine drive down from the Dallas area to join me on a trip to my home town of Beeville.  There we were going to have a 50 year reunions of sorts.  50 years of friendship.  I had make my hostess aware that I would have to bring him, but had reassured him of his progress.

I had been outside with all of my dogs etc working in the yard.  I had the sprinklers on and was having a great morning.  I decided to go in to fix lunch.  As a habit my dogs all follow me in and out most of the day.  I did notice that Drake did not follow me in, but I saw him and didn't have a worried thought as I sat down for lunch.

As I started back outside, I noticed I couldn't see him anywhere.  I ran outside with my eyes sweeping the yard from left to right and back again.  I moved off the porch, still searching.  Suddenly I saw my Mexican Pansies moving, like wind gently blowing.  It caught my attention.  As I moved closer I could see him.  Digging as fast as he could and then tried to shove his whole body through the hole and under the fence.  Then  dig, dig, push again.  I could not believe my eyes.  He was almost out of the yard.

I felt panic as I ran the last few steps to grab him.  He was covered in mud and defiant as I picked him up.  When I put him down, you know by now what he did.  Started digging again frantically.  I grabbed him several times before removing him to the house.  I had to put him in his crate.  He was barking and crying at the doggie door because I had closed it.  I ran outside and begin to drag a couple of eight feet four by twos over to bury in the ground behind the fence, so he couldn't get out.  i did sixteen feet, but would have to watch him now until I could get the wood to finish.

He was in that same manic state that he would get into when playing in water or spinning in my bath tub.  It was that "60" that I talked about in the beginning.  It just seemed that I didn't know what would start him off next.  It wasn't just his manic behavior, but I cold not seem to bring him out of it.  I thought I would have to just be aware of him at the bath tub or in pools of water, but now it was under a fence.  If I didn't know what to redirect him from, what was I to do.  If anything and everything could set him off, how could I redirect him.  How could I help him.  I knew that I was not equipped to handle him when he got into that state.  He would just have to wear himself out sleep and then eventually go to bed.  Try again the next day.

 

Then had been the most serious so far, in so many ways.  He would have been helpless if he had gotten out.  I might have lost him or worse.  The other thought was, is this how we got him in the first place?  Did he escape from a loving owner that did not know his fate?  Had he gotten into the state we found him in by his own demons.  What had he been through?  How much farther did we have to go before we could help his anxiety or whatever is throwing him into these states.  I needed to get him tagged.  I needed to put some notifications on craigs list in Houston, just in case.  I can't imagine loosing him and having to imagine horrible endings, instead of knowing.  Most of all I have to learn how to help him.  I am so over my head.  I have to find some knowledge hidden deep in me that I haven't remembered yet.  So many years of rescue dogs, so many different problems, so many of my own pets, so many years of experience.  I just felt over whelmed and I knew that basically that was what was wrong with my boy.