One man's trash is another mother's escape artist...

I had to leave work early on Monday because our dog, Rufus, escaped again. I say again because Rufus, much like Houdini, sees any locked crate, closed door, or fenced yard as some sort of challenge. It is this one little issue (along with his growing senility, random yapping, and insane fear of brooms and mops) that make me want to kill him most of the time. Don't get me wrong, I love Rufus but he came to me with "issues"!

To preface Rufus's story I must first explain that when they were growing up my two oldest boys, Robbie and Kyle, used to "find" things. All kinds of things - flat basketballs, broken lawn chairs, screen doors, etc... I think they used to just walk up and down alleys looking for treasures (You know, that whole "One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure" mindset). In addition to the boys' habit of collecting what they felt were unwanted items, Kyle had the unique ability to stumble upon and then rescue animals in need. He was constantly running into the house with frogs, baby birds, rabbits, and the occasional cat. Now for the most part, neither of these habits bothered me. But because we live in the 'hood, I had to constantly shake their finds free of hypodermic needles, pieces of broken glass, used condoms, or the occasional stowaway ghetto rat (Ghetto rats are meaner, sneakier, and faster than regular rats but oddly they won't bother you if you don't bother them, they dance REALLY well, and they're hung like horses). Anyway, it was because of all of this that I was not surprised when the boys showed up with Rufus.

When the boys came home with Rufus, an adorable little Manchester Terrier (he looks like a Doberman puppy), they told me they had found him wandering around the neighborhood, looking hungry and cold. And for a brief moment my heart started to melt (A situation I quickly corrected. I did not want another Dog! I could barely get them to take care of Chuckie, the turtle.). I told them in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that we would keep the dog for a few days while we looked for his owners but after that he would have to go to the Animal Protective League. There, I handled that! Nice! Neat! And to the point! The boys just looked at me and smiled.

Day One - Rufus tried to snuggle up with me when I slept but I quickly refuted his advances. I called the Pound first thing in the morning to see if anyone had reported a dog missing... they had not. I left word (and our phone number) at our neighborhood grocery store about the dog. That evening the boys dutifully walked him, fed him and gave him water. And in Rufus's defense he didn't have a single accidents in the house and when I brought this to the boys attention, they just looked at me and smiled.

Day Two - Rufus again tried to snuggle and I refused. I did, however, let him sleep at the foot of my bed. In the afternoon I checked back with the pound and the grocery store. I thought about placing an ad in the newspaper but never quite got around to it. The boys took care of him all day and he slowly started making himself at home. He also started attacking our broom whenever it was visible. I reminded my children that his tenancy was only temporary. They just looked at me and smiled.

Day Three - Rufus and I woke up to a thunder storm. Rufus does not like thunder storms. We spent the day trying to calm him. (We also hid the broom and the mop... he doesn't like mops either.) He was a maniac all day and even had a couple of accidents in the house (but who could blame him... he was scared). At about 8pm, Rufus was pacing back and forth (I had just vacuumed and... well... you guessed it he hates vacuums, too) and when I opened the front door to see if it was still raining (it was) he ran out the front door and down the street. The kids were hysterical. I was worried (not because I liked the dog but because the weather was so bad). We tried to find him but we couldn't. Maybe he found his real owner... My boys were not smiling.

Day Four - I called the Pound to see if anyone had found Rufus and, low and behold, they had! I contacted the gentleman and went to pick up Rufus. (Not because I planned on keeping the dog but I wanted to be able to reassure the kids that he was alright.) The weird thing was the guy who found Rufus lived clear on the other side of town. When I voiced confusion about how Rufus could have made it clear across town in the storm. He told me that he had found Rufus in a bar on our side of town. The guy was sitting drinking beer in a booth and looked down and there Rufus was under his table. (Crazy, right?) Then the guy told me that if I didn't want Rufus, that he would be more than glad to keep him. I was shocked and appalled! He just asked me could he keep MY dog. Who does that? I went home and told the kids we were keeping Rufus. They just looked at me and smiled.

Over the next four years - We learned that Rufus is not only afraid of brooms, mops, vacuums, but also dust pans, canes and walking sticks, wind, and people who make eye contact. We learned that most foods give him gas. We learned that he likes to pee in the house when he is angry, scared or really happy. But mostly we learned that he LOVES to escape from the house, the yard, his leash, his pen, the car, and pretty much any other place he is suppose to stay.

Year Seven - I learned that the boys had actually found Rufus a MONTH before they brought him into the house. My boys, as well as a few other neighborhood kids, had been hiding him in the broken down van my ex-husband had abandoned in my driveway a year earlier. The boys waited to give me this last little bit of "Rufus Info" until they had both turned 18 and had moved into their own apartments. (Neither one of them took Rufus with them when they moved out. I begged them to... over and over again).

So now my husband and I are stuck with what may or may not be a dog they "just found", who we have to crate before we can do any sort of house cleaning (we found out that he also hates the carpet shampooer that we got for Christmas). Rufus is slowly going senile and can barely make it up and down the steps some days but when we finally found him this afternoon. He was more than five blocks away, strutting down the street in the middle of the 'hood. I figure he was trying to find the same bar he found years ago but my husband thinks he was just trying to score some weed in case he develops cataracts. But your guess is as good as mine?