Getting Beans Back
At this point in my life, I have three grand-dogs. One is a French Bulldog named Beans and the other two are Corgis named Hanzo and Fern, who are siblings.
Aside from the obvious difference between these dogs, an important thing to know about them is if Hanzo or Fern squirt past you at the front door, they will wag their adorable corgi butts a short ways and come right back when called. Beans, on the other hand, will dart faster than you could ever think his stout frame could possible move and never look back, not even for cheese. Your only chance of getting him back is the fact that he can barely breath when at complete rest, so he’s no endurance athlete. He just loves to be chased. You also have the fact that his constant struggle for oxygen must keep his brain deprived of what it needs to be clever enough to outwit anyone who has two digits to their age. Because he is dearly-loved and cost the equivalent of a European vacation (when you include the not one, but two surgeries he’s needed to make it so he can eat without vomiting and breath to the extent that he can), his parents and all who are charged with being responsible for him take the greatest care to never let him escape. But, he finds a way on occasion, and when he does, oh the terror his parents feel, the panic that ensues, the strategies to re-capture his devious little self, the enlisting of help from any and all on hand, and the scorn-filled relief they feel when he is corned and caught. I’ve seen his mamma dive and catch him by just one back foot and hold tight while his dad rushes in to scoop him up, panting and gasping for all he’s worth (Beans, not his dad).
You might think with his lack of endurance and less than stellar intelligence, it might not be that difficult to catch him. You’d be wrong. He makes up for his clear deficits with blind enthusiasm for the chase. His huge brown eyes somehow double in size as he assumes his best downward dog, baiting you to reach for him. He’s a master of the lean left, juke right, and then go left. Or, maybe he’ll just go left without the juke. One never knows. How do I know this, you may be wondering? I dog sit for Beans quite frequently when his parents go out of town. And they dog sit for my dog, Chewie frequently when we go out of town. It works great, until we want to go out of town together as a whole family. On one such occasion, I asked one of my co-workers and his wife, Peter and Christy, who are good friends, to come to our home for a long weekend and watch both dogs. They graciously agreed to Rover for us. Because they’ve been to our house plenty, they’re very familiar with Chewie, who never tries to escape, ever. Nothing to worry about there. She’s an old, sweet, very low maintenance dog. I warned them to not be fooled by the vacant look on Beans’ face and the slow way he meanders up to the open front door. He cannot get out, or God help you in getting him back. And they were so vigilant. They never once let their guard down at the front door. I also warned them about the gate on the side of the house because there is access from the backyard, so it has to be kept latched. So, every time they came home, they double checked it was latched before they came in to let the dogs out into the backyard. The trouble is, this is a shared gate with my unsuspecting neighbor, Mary and her well-behaved dog, Lexie.
Friday is garbage day. The cans were empty and sitting outside the gate. Normally, I bring both our cans and Mary’s cans in for both of us on Friday afternoon, but my friends didn’t know to do that, so Mary’s cans were still out on the street Saturday mid-morning. When Peter and Christy returned from getting coffee, they diligently checked the gate to make sure it was latched. Then, they carefully came in the front door, making sure to keep Beans well inside. Of course, they then let both dogs out the back door to go to the bathroom. Chewie went straight out to the grass, peed and came right back. Beans carefully inspected where Chewie peed to make sure he peed in the exact same spot and then disappeared around the corner to check out Mary’s glass door in case the cat was sunning herself and then went to the top of the stairs by the gate to take up his gargoyle post. Something in Peter’s gut told him to walk around the corner and just check the gate again, even though he had just checked in right before they came in the front door. When he rounded the corner, his eyes took in two terrifying facts: the gate was not just unlatched, it was open and Beans was making his way up the stairs. As he ran to get him, Beans picked up his pace and scurried past Mary who had opened the gate to put her garbage cans in and then walked a few steps away to talk with a friend who was out for a walk. She saw Beans scamper by, Peter frantically burst through the gate and rush to the front door where he slammed it open and yelled to Christy, “I need you, fast!” before he took off in pursuit of Beans who was running down the walking/ running/ biking trail that is just beyond the road in front of our house.
Distracted by the smells of so many dogs who had been along that trail that day and all the days prior, Beans was torn. Do I run, do I smell, do I pee in all these spots. First he ran. Then he peed until Peter was close. But Peter was a rookie Beans hunter and he thought he had him. He didn’t know about the downward dog, lean left, juke right, could go either direction move Beans had perfected. So Beans evaded him, time and again. With Mary and her friend coming up behind Beans, Peter could run ahead to block his other escape route. Christy was just about in position to prevent him from getting around him on the road, but he saw his window closing and tucked his butt in his most agile and quickest move of all and got past her to take off in Mary’s direction for another twenty yard sprint. But he was breathing in snorts and gasps and needed a break, if only for a few seconds, which allowed Peter to make his way down the trail and get behind him. Now Mary and her friend were in front of him, Christy had the road blocked and Peter had his flank. With the circle intact, they slowly closed as he crouched, snorting and rasping like a dying machine. It did take a final dive to capture him and lug his dense body home. All five were exhausted, Beans from the physical exertion, Mary, her friend, Peter, and Christy from the adrenaline rush of almost losing Beans.
Each day we were gone, I sent Peter a text asking how the dogs were and he replied, just fine, all’s well. I passed the good news on to Beans’ parents and we all enjoyed a wonderful weekend away. When I returned to work on Tuesday, Peter and I were enjoying lunch with a group of friends and I asked him if the dogs gave them any trouble and he then told be the story of chasing Beans. I laughed but understood. It’s one thing to let your own dog out and feel the fear of “what if I lost him?” It’s another thing all together when it’s someone else’s dog.
Later that week, my son stopped by and we were chatting. I asked him how Beans was doing after his weekend with strangers. “He’s perfectly fine,” he said. “You know Beans, he loves everyone. Why, did Peter say something? Did he give them trouble?”
“No, he was his normal friendly self,” I said smiling. “But, he did get out.” The sheer terror on my son’s face for a split second even though the ordeal was over. Beans was home on his own couch with his own blanket as we spoke, and he was still a bit unnerved. I told him the story and he felt bad for Peter and Christy having to go through that.
He also said, “I’m so grateful they got him back. I mean I feel bad Beans did that and obviously it was a complete accident. No one could have seen that coming. But this is why if freaks us out so much to leave him. Unless it’s your dog, you just don’t really know what they’ll do and how to get them back. And, honestly, Peter and Christy did a great job, but no one will work as hard as you will for your own dog. I’m just so glad they could catch him. Beans loose on the trail. God knows how far he could go.”
As he left to go home and probably hug and scold Beans at the same time, neither of which Beans would understand, I thought of the first Bible story I ever heard in my very first Sunday School class. It was 1972, so the teacher had a felt story board and put up a felt fence, felt sheep, one felt sheep way outside the fence, a felt man with a bathrobe (or so I thought), and explained how the felt man who I learned was Jesus would leave all the sheep safe in the fence to go find the one who was lost. Everything my son said rang true. When they’re yours, you know what they’ll do and you know how to get them back. And no one will care as much as you do or work as hard as you will because they’re yours. If you look at the cross, you know that’s true.
