Gustavo was unspeakably naughty. Unspeakably.
The end of the story is, the lovely strangers, his new best friends, drove him home.
In their car.
I can’t even tell you the rest of the story, except that I have hardly ever been so freaked out in my life, and I wasn’t even really mad. Just freaked out and mad with worry.
The gist of it is, he ran away OUT of the forest. The forest where he has gone regularly, for the 2 1/2 years he has been my dog. OUR special forest. The dog who never leaves his Otterpop and his Ruby, his bestest forest running buddies. The dog who has been practicing focus and recalls and having a lovely, wonderful, superfun time of it and acting so, trained.
It’s like he’s tried crack. Escaping under fences crack. He’s tried it a few times now, a new place, a new fence, came running right back. Tried it the next time, found a better fences, stayed out a little longer. Like maybe a whole MINUTE. Went under another one, gone a couple minutes.
And now he’s an addict. It’s unspeakable, but let me repeat the end of the story. The lovely strangers drove him home, in their car.
Can we blame it on a certain walk in the forest with a certain Pyrenees Shepherd puppy who might have modeled forest-on-leash potentialities Gustavo wishes to avoid by prophylactic-ally running away and through fences? Thanks to the nice people in the car from all TSD Blog readers!!!!
Que niño travieso! Yay for the nice people!
Phew, I'm glad he's safely back home. I can imagine how upsetting that must have been. Despite all the training in the end they still have minds of their own.
I don't know what to blame it on. I know that in the last 2 months, he both decided he must escape through fences, and has become horribly terrified of his pen at work.
I don't know if these 2 things are related or not. The timing is weird. Although when terrified of his pen at work, he could easily escape out but doesn't go OVER fences, only ones he can go through because of his littleness.
The other dogs, not terrified of pen at work or need to escape through fences. They are as baffled as me.
Everyone has been enjoying our deck at work lately and not going in the pen. That took care of that. Bandaid.
Fences, not so much. If the unspeakable story was speakable, you'd be all, whoa, that is super crazy weird and even for Gustavo, makes you scratch your head about, How Come A Dog Would Do That.
But now, like a certain PyrShep puppy, he sure as hell is going on a nice long rope to go to the forest. Or anywhere he could go find a fence to go through.
Oh Laura, I am so sorry. I can not even imagine what a day you had.
Sending you hugs.
Don't spend alot of time thinking about why; you'll just go nuts.
Keep up the clicker training and developing the relationship. He may always have these stress moments, probably just who Gustavo is.
I went through a similar situation recently — let me just say that following my dog's footprints in the snow as he crosses big roads over and again was heartrending :(. I also have kindly strangers to thank — they scooped him out of the road and called us, then waited in their car for us to come pick him up.
(http://remcat.livejournal.com/239404.html)
What a horrible thing to happen! I also have had an unspeakable event/s with Sam. Only his drug of choice is doorways.
He hangs around like a rabid fly when he's in that mood, waiting for it to open. Then he breaks through the tiniest crack and bursts out screaming and shrieking down the street, stopping only to round up hapless bystanders. He's only 4 pounds but very loud.
Our most very unspeakable day included getting loose in a shopping center parking lot and rounding up people coming out of a pizza place. Shrieking and screaming the whole time.
And a lady actually tried to compete with me to catch him claiming he couldn't possibly be my dog the way he was running from me. She was using food to bait him and that was just compounding his hysteria.
Makes me very sad just to think how fast it all happened and how easily I could have lost him.
Really, really glad your little guy is back and safe with you. You know, you never know what this is like until you've had to deal with one of these lightning bolt-fast, feral-ish minded little guys.
You truly cannot predict what they will do, and they don't rely on humans to help them when they get into deep trouble.
It's done and over so fast and all you can do is try to cope with your head just swirling with worry.
Yep, I've been there and regardless of what I do, I can tell you that despite my best efforts I will end up there again. I just hope we can keep working and trying and maybe someday, they'll realize "there's no place like home."
Maybe something spooked him? Or maybe he got too far away from you and the other dogs and instead of trying to find his way back just freaked out about being lost and ran and ran until he found some people.
Very interesting little dog, possibly one who would benefit from some kind of meds temporarily.
Hang in there Laura!
Please, please, please have some blood work done on G-man. A complete tick-borne disease panel plus complete Thyroid panel (not just circulating T4 either). Don't let anyone say "you live here or have never been there" so none of those illnesses are possible. Just be safe. No amount of dog training in the world can help you if there is an underlying physical issue. This is not just grasping at straws, I have been right about this with many dogs in the past (including my own DeCaff & Stoni).
Yes, he has to have some dental work and I am going to have our vet do some blood panels just to see if anything is going on. He's such a mystery.
When Otterpop had her nervous breakdown, the vet did some blood panels and nothing wrong. She just went crazy, all on her own.
Which freaks me out. Like, do I cause my dogs to lose their minds? Holy loonytoonz, Batman…