Sunday, November 14, 2010

Smarter than your average bear?

So I let K-Dog out in the backyard this afternoon after she went to the back door and flipped the handle with her snout (her signal that she wants to go out... or come back in if she does it while outside). I let her out. Then forgot about her while I was shifting laundry and making sure the boys had all of the hockey stuff they needed. But I didn't realize I had forgotten her until I was driving back home almost two hours later. OMG! In that time, I had dropped the boys off at the ice rink and then gone to Kohl's to return some things. It was when I was about two miles from home that I had the sudden realization that I'd never let the dog back in the house before I left with the kids for the rink. OMG!

A zillion thoughts ran through my head. It was warmish outside, so I wasn't worried about her being cold. What I WAS worried about is the hole in the gate (which she made over a year ago when, for reasons still unknown to us, she crashed through it).

I got home and went into the house through the garage. And there she was, standing in the hallway. "Huh," I thought. "Maybe I DID let her in before I left." As I walked down the hall toward her, I continued the conversation with myself in my head. "But I really don't re-"

By this time, I was at the end of the hall. The back door was open! And it was cool enough in the rec room, that it'd been open for awhile. I closed the door and went upstairs, where I discovered she'd been in the house long enough to take all the trash out of my bathroom trashcan, as well.

The back door does not open easily, and she would've had to push the handle down with her snout while simultaneously pushing the door open. So she's either very strong or very persistent. Or both. And definitely smarter than we tend to give her credit for!

I'm just glad she doesn't seem to have invited any other living creatures in from the back yard while the door was open!

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