Game of escape: The battle to catch a runaway dog – Joe Bennett

The dog was a serial escape artist. Photo / 123rf

She was crouching behind a low wall at the top of some steps, ready to jump out on whoever came up them.

At first, I thought she was a young girl. But as I came nearer, I saw she was a grown woman. Presuming she was playing a prank on her children, I smiled and put a finger to my lips to show I wouldn’t give her away.

But when I reached the top of the steps, there were no children coming up. Indeed, there was no one at all.

“Can you see a black dog?” she said.

I couldn’t.

“Oh dear,” she said, and stood up. She was holding a leash.

At that moment, a dog appeared in the walled grassy area at the foot of the steps.

“Is that the dog?”

“Yes,” and she ducked back down behind the wall.

The story emerged bit by bit. The dog was a heading dog, whelped on a farm, but sent away because it didn’t have the right instincts with sheep. Nevertheless, it remained true to its breed, active, intelligent and capable, the woman said, of learning 400 separate commands.

Down on the grassy enclosure, it was trying to corral a pair of gulls that wheeled easily out of reach. The dog ran and leapt and seemed very happy.

Now 3 years old, the dog was a serial escaper. Though they’d turned the back yard into a bank vault the dog still somehow found a way out. And once out it stayed out.

Among the commands the dog understood was “come here”. And what it understood by it was an end to the freedom to run around and chase gulls. So though the dog was an affectionate beast and loved by all, it was a nightmare to try to retrieve.

In desperation, the woman had climbed the steps and hidden behind the wall, hoping the dog would notice she had gone and follow out of curiosity. And as it rounded the corner at the top of the steps, she would leap out and seize it.

I sympathised. Years ago, when I was living in town, I owned an escapologist called Jessie who was forever finding a way through or over or under the fences I built.

Sometimes she came home in the small hours through the back door that I left open for her, twice she came back with the dog ranger, but most often I’d get a call from some pub downtown where she had laid her adoring head on the knee of a patron eating chips. “I’ll be right there,” I’d say.

“No rush,” would be the invariable reply. “Everybody loves her.” And when I finally arrived at the pub, Jessie would look at me with eyes of astonished innocence, as if to say, “Were you looking for me? If only I’d known.”

So I suggested to the woman that perhaps the wisest thing to do was to go home. The dog would find its way back.

“But he’s got no road sense,” she said.

I offered to try to catch the dog. She gave me a grateful look, and a piece of cheese as lure. I went down the steps with the woman following. She kept below the height of the wall so the dog wouldn’t see her, and then crouched by the gap that served as a gateway to the grass.

I called the dog, offered the cheese. The dog saw through that on the instant. So I scampered about on the grass a little – to the extent that I am capable of scampering – and then out through the gate. Dogs love to chase.

The dog followed. As it came through the gate, the owner pounced. But this was a squirmy young dog with all the writhing energy of creation. It eluded her dive, bounded up the steps, stopped, turned, quivering with the joy of the game, then came back down for more. The woman dived again, missed again, and the dog was back on the grass and leaping delightedly at the wheeling gulls.

“Are you all right?”

Sprawled on the concrete, she nodded. And laughed. Which allowed me to laugh too. On the far side of the grass the dog hopped over a low wall into the deserted skateboard park. A cold wind was blowing. It would soon be dark.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help,” I said. I gave the cheese back. And I left them there.