OMG I'm Going to KILL the Dog(s)

I just had a little adventure involving our dog, Hobbes, and out neighbor's dog, Shadow. Here's the backstory: Shadow has been coming in and out of our backyard through the hole he dug under the fence to play with Hobbes. Fine by us, he was getting exercised. Whenever Shadow came, we closed the back door so they couldn't play in the house and destroy it. Shadow's parents, our neighbors, were usually OK with this, but sometimes slightly peeved that their dog wasn't listening to them and was escaping into our backyard.

Now for what went wrong today.

Mom and I had just gone on an errand and she had gone to go pick up Elf (my younger brother who has Autism and can be very violent) from camp early because he had attacked a counselor. Nothing new, but she still needed to go down. Dad is always working, and Midget (my youngest sibling, my baby sister) was also at camp. I was alone in the house with Hobbes.

I went upstairs to my room to listen to my iPod. Before I put it in, I heard a kthump thump kthump BAMMM!!! These sounds were accompanied by scratching and whining sounds. Hobbes, the only other creature that was supposed to be in the house, only made these sounds when he wanted to go outside to play with Shadow. The BAMMM!!! however, was from a large creature crashing head-on into my door. I peeked out of my room to see a very excited Shadow. This dog, mind you, is supposed to be outside with our dog so they DON'T DESTROY OUR HOUSE.

It turns out Mom had left the back door open when we left and had never closed it. Shadow had wriggled through the hole he had dug, ran to join Hobbes, and ran inside. Hobbes had followed. In the process Hobbes' new toy had been grabbed by Shadow. Shadow and Hobbes had run throughout the house fighting for it, finally ending up crashing into my door.

'Ok,' I thought, 'that was odd, but no worries. Shadow'll leave eventually, and I'll tell Mom how those crazy nutcases had come in.' I went back up to my room.

The placement of all the rooms in the house is rather odd, they're all on the second floor. My room is 24'/12' (big room) and makes up the entire front side of the house. I overlook the driveway, the front door, and our lawn. So when three strange people who I had never seen before came out of our neighbor's house and began to walk up the driveway, past the lawn and to our front door, they were clearly in my sight.

I went back downstairs to open the door and ask who they were. They were, in fact, our next door neighbors, who owned Shadow, and wanted their dog back. The group of three consisted of a mother and two boys, around 2nd or 3rd graders. I went back into the house to see if I could grab Shadow by myself with Hobbes darting around. I could not. I called to her for help getting her dog, forgetting momentarily that she had no control over Shadow and that was why I went to catch him in the first place. I think she thought that our family had any more control over him. We did not.

I tried to usher only Shadow or only Hobbes into the house so we could catch them. When I opened the door, they both hopped in. Now I was starting to worry. I got Hobbes by the collar, and, to my luck, it slipped off. Hobbes ran opposite the back door, namely, toward the front door, which the two 3rd grade boys had left open. Shadow then jumped up and grabbed Hobbes' collar that was hanging out of my hand and starting running after Hobbes. Shadow's mom had had no luck whatsoever catching her dog, and Shadow kept running to the front door.

"Close the door!!" we shouted. "Why?" the two boys shouted back. We rounded the corner to see the two large dogs running out of the door. The neighbor's group all immediately ran outside, and I did too, cursing the fact that I didn't have any shoes on. I got there in time to see the tow partners in crime galloping gleefully down the street.

Hobbes had run off before. He never usually got far because Mom was there to yell at him to come back. Mom was not home, she was on the highway. After realizing that there was no way I could do this without shoes on, I ran back inside and slipped on the first pair I could find, a pair that belonged to Mom and were way too big for me. I also picked up the phone and started dialing Mom's cell phone number as I ran back out the door.

By this time our neighbor across the street had noticed, mostly because he had been outside working on his car while this was going on. Now he was also gazing down the street at the two canines, who were happily peeing on the trees down the street that were about 20 yards away. There was no way I could run that far in the shoes I was wearing without alerting the dogs, so I stood on our driveway and listened to Mom's garbled instructions. The most I really got out of it was where Hobbes' leash was.

The trio of people who owned Shadow had gone back inside to find his treats, listening to out across the street neighbor's advice about luring them back. I was now basically alone on how to get a dog that weighed as much as I did (120 lbs) back into our house. I called Mom back and she said that he would 'walk away for awhile and then come when you called'.

Deciding that I had no chance at this without his leash I went back inside to get it, a read leather strap with a loop at one end and a clasp at the other. Mom had also said that I 'was going to have to make it into a collar by wrapping the leash around his neck and hooking the loop onto the clasp'. To do this, I first had to get close enough to Hobbes. That started with figuring out where the HELL he was. Running down the street in Mom's ill-fitting shoes, I found him sniffing someone's bushes.

Calling him over and praying that something went right, I managed to hook the leash and grab it so it was tight enough to pass as a collar. I half walked, half dragged him back over to our street and close to our house. I saw the Trio waiting for me there.

"Where's Shadow?!?" I yelled, still around 15 yards from home.

"Locked up inside out house, he's not getting out!" they hollered back.

I finally got Hobbes back inside our house and away from Shadow. That was around half an hour ago. I hope Hobbes's happy with that taste of freedom (more like a full meal in my mind), because he's not getting another for a LONGGGGG time if I have anything to say about it.