Little Girl

Little Girl relaxing in the garage
Friday afternoon after Mike and I returned from the vet.  

Buddy, the Golden Retriever, and Little Girl, a mutt, both had vet appointments early Friday morning. Buddy was out of heart worm medicine so we needed to take him in and Little Girl had actually never had a heart worm test and we figured she was overdue.  Anyway, that was the plan.

The first thing Mike does each morning is to let the dogs out.  This isn't as easy as it sounds.  Four dogs are locked in cages downstairs in the basement.  Buddy and Little Girl are in the dog room and Mabel and Gracie are in cages in Mike's office.  He herds them all out the back door to do their thing.  Mabel has to be put on a leash before she is allowed out the door as she will immediately disappear only later to be spotted across the street.

So when Mike opened the basement door on Friday morning to let out the dogs, he was very surprised to find Little Girl already on the basement step.  During the night, just our of sheer boredom I guess, she had worked open the latch on her cage door.  It's possible that Mike conveyed his displeasure to Little Girl because an hour later when we went to leave for the vet she had disappeared.  As a result, only Buddy went to the vet.

The vet was very nice about it.  Apparently we are not the only pet owners that have encountered this problem.  She thinks dogs have a sixth sense about vet visits.  As she was examining Buddy the two office cats wondered into the exam room.  It occurred to me at that point that maybe it was a good thing Little Girl hadn't come.  (Little Girl is the dog who killed my chicken.)  If she had been present I would have feared for the safety of the cats.

The office cats.
When the one cat gets thirsty she stands by the faucet and whines.
The vet then turns the water on at the sink so
she can drink out of the faucet.
That's what she is doing in this picture.  

After the vet visit, Mike and I dropped by a hardware store where he bought heavy duty locking carabiner clips for the dog cage doors.  He bought two for Buddy's cage and two for Little Girls cage.  

We have used them two nights in a row now and so far these two dogs have been unable to escape their cages.  This is not from lack of trying.  This morning Mike found the regular door latch for Little Girls cage undone.  I remain cautiously optimistic that we have resolved the problem of the escaping dogs.  

Little Girl double locked in for the night.