Thursday

Glass Half Full : Rocket learned a new skill! Yay! New skill for Rocket! Wheeee!
Glass Half Empty : Rocket can now open a closed and latched door. At will.

I had him in his room when Broskey was here to pick up his mice and I figured that it might be nice for everyone if Rocket wasn't underfoot. I locked him up and Broskey and I took care of getting the mice and their crate out to the car. We came back into the house and were greeted by Rocket.

Super.

We both said that the door had not been firmly latched and if the door was firmly closed that this would not happen again. I put him back into the room and firmly shut the door. It was closed .. Broskey and I went back outside and chatted about his family's recent vacation.

And then Rocket came out to say Hi! and also, I imagine, HA.

To calm myself down and hopefully drive thoughts of opening doors from his mind, I took Rocket to Dix last night for some off leash time and while we were there, his pinch collar disappeared.  I didn't notice until I got him in the car to go home and by that time it was getting dark and I didn't want to be there after dark, I was annoyed but he could use a new one anyway and now I have no excuses. I saw it as being a write off because it has a loose section and it falls apart and off pretty easily and its a problem, now, I would just go get a new one that isn't loose and won't fall apart.

I went to work this morning I nosed around where we had gone and lo and behold I found it! And all in one piece! And I don't have to buy a new one yet. Its not perfect, but it still works, it just needs some tweaking.

So it was a good day. And Rocket wanted to stay in his room all day!  I started to think about his new skill set and  instead of immediately going out and buying a dead bolt - I decided that it's a good thing he can get out if he really wants to. If the alarm is going off, if the house is on fire, he can escape. If there are thieves in the house, he can get out and kill them - which is what he would do. He can be wild and he's very tall and  he can be a seriously butch male dog when he wants to be. He just looks like a giselle, really, he's a hyena.

I'm still going to get a new knob with a simple lock on it though because I'm not sure he has great decision making skills as to when he really HAS to get out of his room. We may not agree on what would be enough of a reason for him to bust out into the rest of the house. I don't want to leave my velvet couch unprotected or have any more of my hardwoods ruined or my poor cat terrorized. By the time he gets back from vaca, there will be a new door knob and shiney, sturdy, lock. HA.