Fritz Escapes

This weekend the porch got its yearly cleaning of all the things that accumulate there over the winter months. We cleaned it up and swept it out. Today I managed to get a couple of the storm windows taken off and the screens put up. (Don't ask me how I feel about jalousie windows. I will get ugly fast.) Since then, Preschooler D and I have really been hanging out on the porch -- reading, eating snacks and playing our electronic games, of course.

I had gone back into the kitchen for something when I heard Preschooler D say, "Mommy, Fritz wants to go out." Dropping whatever it was I had gone to the kitchen for, I raced to the door . . . alas . . . too late. Fritz was gone.

Now you may remember when we got Fritz T that I swore up and down that I was going to train the dog and train him right. Well, that hasn't happened. At all.

Normally, Fritz is put on a rope when he goes outside. A rope which twists itself around our ankles and leaves nasty, scaring rope burns when Fritz T sees a leaf drop and decides he needs to chase after it. But D didn't think about that. He's three. He just thought it would be a good idea to let Fritz out.

Out Fritz ran into the neighborhood. It was after school, so I could tell where he was by neighborhood dogs barking followed by cries of neighborhood children, "It's Fritz! It's Fritz! Catch him!" Their little friends would then reply, "Nah, it's too hard. He just runs away." Indeed, he does.

I was mad and so I was perfectly content to let him run about, possibly to be run over by a car, but unfortunately Neighbor Wendy came by on her bike with her large dog and no leash. Her dog and my dog played chased between three or four houses. I was perfectly content to go back onto the porch let them both be run over by a car, but Wendy is actually trying to train her dog to obey and so she wasn't very happy. I went out and made a big show of trying to catch Fritz, but, of course, I didn't.

Neighbor Wendy caught her dog and took him home. Fritz took off in the other direction. I went back to the porch. It wasn't until Brent came home that Fritz finally decided he'd had enough and allowed Brent to drag him to his kennel.

I have a feeling that today's run away episode won't be the last one this summer.

Boo.