UnderDog and the Outside

In the first hours after we Brought UnderDog home, I wanted him to get to know the outside, to make sure he knew where to do his business. I brought him outside in his carrier, where he stayed for quite some time without venturing out. Eventually I reached in and pulled him out. I set him on the grass, but he seemed unsure what to do. I thought "maybe he'd be more comfortable if I weren't around" so I went back inside to work on dinner. I knew he would be okay in the back yard because Dog has spent years out there and never had any trouble. My partner and I peaked out occasionally to make sure he was doing okay, but one time UnderDog wasn't there.

It still makes my stomach clench to remember that moment when I realized he had probably squeezed under one of the tiny openings beneath our wood fence. The neighbors pointed the direction he had gone, and I followed him in my slippers, sure this was going to end in tragedy. I knew he would run if anyone tried to pick him up, and that he didn't even have a tag on his collar yet. We live right downtown, and the chances he would run out into the considerable traffic were high. At one point I was standing in the middle of State Street waving my arms at oncoming cars who could probably not see the little terrified dog trying to avoid going near the folks drinking coffee at a sidewalk cafe. He would slip out of sight for a moment, then I would catch a glimpse of him going around a corner. A neighbor joined me as I took off my slippers, thinking I could move faster in bare feet. Finally UnderDog cornered himself in a patch of tall grass next to a wooden fence. The neighbor and my partner stood in his two paths of escape. I bent down into the grass and scooped him up. I carried him in my arms the long walk home. I felt sick that I had not provided a safe yard for this already traumatized dog.

We didn't go outside again that night, but the next morning I thought "I'll just put him down and watch him carefully. If I stand between him and his exit, then we can get by until we have reinforced the fence" As I set him down he looked at me in terror, then bolted to the opposite end of our yard to a new escape route, and had his shoulders through a chipped place in the cement wall before I could cross the 8 feet of lawn to stop him. I felt miserable and powerless. I found some helpful advice on my favorite Mill-Survivor site that made me feel like maybe I wasn't the worst guardian ever, but house-training, I decided, would start another day.

Monday I begged my friends CrowJoy and Mander to come over and inspect the yard with me. We took a field trip to the Agway and found a roll of garden edging which my friend Mander fastened up with her pneumatic nail gun. We nailed extra bits to any little nook or cranny we could find. We also bought a good supply of puppy pads, because it was now clear that house-training was going to be a long-term process.

The next time Dog needed to go out, I scooped up UnderDog and I sat with him in my arms on the steps as he sniffed the air and listening to the birds. I felt safe again.


UnderDog still has some ambivalence about the out of doors. He will slip out the open door to the backyard when he is sure no one is watching, and can be seen some days bounding in joy, and other days cowering with his back against the wire mesh we installed for his safety.