I've
been watching the news about a monkey escaping from his enclosure in
Kansas City and inviting 6 of his friends to come along - only 2
accepted his invitation though.
Happily all are back home now and no animals or people were hurt in the process.It
reminded me of a greyhound I had named Navjo Thunder. (yes that is how
the owner spelled the name so no corrections please) Thunder was a
typical brindle greyhound who was from a litter of dogs that could fly,
but that is not what was memorable about him.
I was having a
problem. I would be letting dogs go outside for turnout and all of a
sudden I would look down and I would have males and females comingling
around me. Most kennels, including this one, turned males and females
out separately. Then I would have to go into panic mode and start
putting them up as fast as I could before a fight started.
The
first time it happened I kicked myself in the rear because I thought I
had not latched the gate properly to the girl's pen. It is not an
unknown occurance but I was usually much too careful about such things
for it to happen.
Then it happened again. I had every greyhound
in my kennnel running around together happily getting to know the
strangers in the other pen. Generally this leads to much excitement
from males who aren't used to having females so close and then the
females start putting the males in their place and a huge fight can
break out. So once again I put them up as fast as I could and I
wondered what in the world was going on with the pens. I thought maybe
the latch was broken at this point....but it wasn't.
Then one day I
walked outside to latch the gate for the boys after I put them out. I
did this just in time to watch Thunder walk over to the girls pen and
flip the latch up quicker than any burglar could do it. The females had
learned that he could do this and they were waiting at the gate to make
a run for it and start the big party in the kennel.
I had to
laugh. I had never seen a dog do anything like that before. I rushed
to put them up again and from then on out I had an extra lock on each
gate so that it was Thunderproof. It was quite comical to watch
Thunder try to work the latch with that lock on it and I'm just glad he
never tried to open the outside gate before I figured out what was going
on.
That can lead to a whole another set of problems....much like the monkeys running around the zoo
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