Hudson’s turning out to be a pretty good dog, but he has a sick sense of humor.
Theo’s a wanderer. To him everything within eight miles of home is his yard. When we first moved to the country, I didn’t have a pen set up and didn’t have the heart to leave him on the chain all day. There were more than a few times when I would come home to no dogs, or just Hudson.
For the next three to four days I would get phone call updates from the sheriff department, he was spotted on NE 120th Street, and blah, blah, blah avenue. I’d get calls from neighbors telling me he was spotted walking down a road someplace or leaving somebody’s farm 20 minutes ago. Each time I’d go look he would be gone by the time I got there.
Eventually, he would make his way home, or he would land someplace seven or eight miles away and I would go get him. Always with that dumb, “Sorry dude, ran out of pee a few miles ago and got lost,” look on his face.
Hudson would occasionally get suckered into following Theo on his trips.
I can see that conversation after the second or third day, “Man I thought you said the house was just around the corner…”
Most of the time Hudson stays home,or comes back in a couple hours. I think it’s because he was abandon once. He’s heard that, “Wait here and I’ll be right back.” Then spent the next several months eating road kill and sleeping with the coyotes.
He knows a good thing when he sees it.
With a safe place to sleep and free food, Hudson does have a good thing going except for one minor drawback.
It appears Theo is bisexual. Hudson isn’t. So some days much of his time is spent running from Theo’s “advances.”
After a couple of weeks of putting up with Theo’s repeated walkabouts, and sixteen-mile round trips to retrieve him, I decided it was time for a new plan.
One of my neighbors must have had the same thought when they dropped off a spare transmitter unit for a radio-controlled shock collar.
A new collar and a couple batteries later, Theo was about ready for a new “gentle reminder” of where his yard ended.
The first step was installing some white flags that serve as a visual indicator of Theo’s limits.
At the white flag you starting getting an audible notice, and if you lean a little too far past that point for too long, you get a nice buzzing sensation with six adjustable settings.
I know this for a fact. While placing the first white flag I leaned a little too far forward as I stuck it in the ground with my right hand while holding the beeping collar in my left one.
I only did it once.
I turned the setting down one before I put it on Theo. I never get to the training part of the manual.
Theo only did it once.
He trotted up to the flag, and continued on his way while I started hollering for him to come back when I heard the collar start to beep.
Theo got a sort of a bewildered look on his face, shook his head a couple times, then lit out for the front porch like it was the Fourth of July.
Hudson was watching all this. Hudson doesn’t run off for three days, so Hudson doesn’t wear a receiver collar.
Now when Theo starts getting frisky, Hudson has learned where his safe zone is. With Theo in hot pursuit, he runs circles through the yard, a lap across the porch then a sharp turn and heads for the flags. He’ll flop to the ground a few feet outside the zone and cross his paws as Theo comes charging toward the perimeter.
Some times Theo spots the flags and stops short. Sometimes he doesn’t.
Either way Hudson seems to enjoy the show.
The white visual reminder flags seem to disappear occasionally, so from time-to-time I go out and stick in a few new ones.
The other day after sticking a couple in the front yard, I looked out the window and saw Hudson pulling one out with his teeth, and drop it about six yards farther away.
Hudson’s got a sick sense of humor.
Terry Spradley is the editor of the St. John News. His e-mail address is sjnewseditor@embarqmail.com
St. John, Kan. —
