Packer Breaks his Leash
My neighbor has a golden retriever puppy that is almost full-grown in size but is a bundle of puppy energy. Packer is only about seven months old, but is pretty big and strong. I do mid-day walks for Packer while his humans are at work. I was walking him one day with my neighbor’s retractable leash. Packer was pulling so hard I had to hold onto the handle with both hands. Suddenly, the leash snapped and broke and Packer ran off into another neighbor’s yard. I couldn’t believe he could pull hard enough to actually break the leash! Needless to say, Packer now has a harness and is pulling much less on walks because of it. It’s the same harness I used with my dog when he was younger to successfully curb his pulling. If anyone is interested, it’s the Easy Walk harness, and the leash attaches at the dog’s chest, which deters pulling. It made a huge difference with my dog and has with Packer and other dogs I've walked who pull on the leash. Here's a link: https://www.petsafe.net/easywalk
Feline Houdini's
I care for two cats named Buster and Figero. Figero is a black and white domestic shorthair and Buster is an orange tabby. Since Buster had developed some digestive issues, their humans started sprinkling a little probiotic powder on Buster’s food. They left the package of probiotic powder on the kitchen counter. One day, I arrived at their apartment, greeted the cats, and started getting their food ready. When I looked for the probiotic powder it wasn’t where I had left it. I looked all over the kitchen counters, in the pantry, on the floor, everywhere I could think of, and it was nowhere to be found. I was stumped. The next day, I found a couple of spots of throw up on the carpet with small pieces of what resembled the metallic packaging that contained the probiotic powder. The cats had eaten the whole package of probiotic powder--including the package--and left no traces, until they threw some of it up. I watched them closely over the next couple of days to make sure they weren’t sick, and they were fine. From that point on the probiotic powder was kept in a kitchen cabinet where Buster and Figero couldn’t get to it.
These cats are adept at opening doors too. When my clients went away during the holidays, I noticed that the closet door in the master bedroom was open, and I thought I remembered seeing it closed the day before. I closed the closet door, and the next morning I noticed that it was open again. I closed it again, making sure it was securely closed, thinking that maybe I hadn’t closed it all the way the day before, and that’s why the cats were able to open it. Sure enough, on my next visit the closet door was open again. I texted my clients that their cats must be little houdinis because they were able to repeatedly open the door. I laughed when the wife texted me back that she had noticed the door open a couple of times and thought her husband was leaving it open. The cats’ antics could have landed the husband in the dog house!