Thursday evening Zeke wanted to stay outside. We know he can slip out of his collar when he’s motivated, and we know he can climb over the gate we had specially made to keep him on the front, so we always clip him to a lead and close the gate. That keeps him inside. But on Thursday, I clipped his lead to his collar and left the gate open because Leah was coming in. She forgot to close it.

After a while we heard him bark and ran to the door just in time to see him disappear down to the right, towards where the foxes used to live. I put on my shoes and went out just in time to see him run up road to the left. He ignored my call.

When Zeke is running loose he’s kind of like an individual gas molecule — there’s no way to predict where he will be at any given moment. So I gave up looking and went inside. After about an hour, when it was getting dark, I got into the car to look for him. I drove down Wildlife Trail and didn’t see him. Then when I came back up, there he was, sitting in the grass at the side of the road. I opened the back door and called him in.

When he plopped down in the living room, he was puffing like a steam engine.

I put a towel under him to try to catch some of his drool. He panted like this for maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

I guess we’re just going to have to expect him to escape every once in a while, no matter how careful we are. Maybe this tendency will fade as he ages. I know he’ll never learn any better.