Well he scampered over the fence again and got loose. He's been doing that for years. An absolute genius of a dog when it comes to making escapes, he PLANS them out like an engineer. The backyard is fenced but I don't dare leave him out there even a moment alone without one eye on him all the time, he will actively watch you to see if you are paying attention to him, and if not, over that fence he goes like a monkey. And yes, like a monkey, he will literally climb a chain link fence with paws and scamper over the top, I've seen him do it and it is incredible.

He's a very cute Pomeranian we picked up from the shelter a few years back, probably after making an escape from a previous owner who finally gave up on him. He's not a little Pom by any stretch, a fairly big one, almost midsized for a dog.

Well, his most recent escape is totally my fault. I thought I could trust him and go back in the house just for a teeny weeny second to take care of something. He was on the picnic table with a look of "trust me" on his face. I had made these micro treks into the house before without any consequence, but that of course was all part of conditioning me to let my guard down. Usually if I had to go into the house for something of duration and he didn't want to come, he would go on the chain until I got back (he's escaped from that too, but that's another story).

Well, I came back out and he was as gone as it gets.

No problem, it had only been a minute and I could catch him running down the street, he always goes the same direction. On my bike and out the front door down the street I go, expecting to see him trotting down the happy trail with his finn like tail up in the air. But this time he took a different direction. Perhaps he figured out he better go a different way this time to throw me off? Who knows. But I could not find him anywhere. Search and rode the neighborhood for over an hour. Gone.

The next day I get a call from the shelter, and they had him.

So I go to the shelter, they say he is in the back and I need to bring his cage number to the front desk, and I go back there. There are a number of people in the shelter looking to adopt, and lots of dogs in there vying for their attention. In my dog's section I see a couple of ladies looking down at a Pomeranian, "Oh you are so cuuuuuttte!" I hear one of them say, she is leaning down trying to pet him through the cage." They are ignoring other dogs they like my dog. Just another aspect of his ability to escape, being cute helps a lot. People pull your fat out of the fire when you are cute.

He spots me, and immediately ignores the ladies. Get me the fuck out of here the look says. It's not a happy to see you look. It's a demanding look. You WILL get me out of here it says. OK. So I go to the front give the lady the cage number, pay the 55 dollar reclaim fee. Another shelter lady goes out and get the dog, brings him to us. Thanks are exchanged, be careful next time the lady said. I will I said. Off we go.

Does my dog learn from all this? No. He still looks at the fence then at me to see if I am watching him when we are out back. He might trot towards the fence to test, if I say no, he trots somewhere else in the backyard. The only difference now is there will be no more trusting him even for a second. If I have to go in, or do something in the backyard and not have an eye on him, all the chain he goes. He's not happy about that of course, but sorry dude, you used your last bit of chump change trust and you blew it.

Must be a low fence if a Pom can get over it. I have a dachshund, and he gets UNDER everything.

I've had two dogs that could climb chainlink. I solved it with one of them by overfeeding, this made her heavier, and thus made it harder to climb and jump over things.

The other thing I had to do was engineer an overhang at the top of the fence. This made it impossible to climb over.

I've now scaled her food back and she's getting healthy and stronger, so we'll see if her attitude has changed about escape?