The Oddest Damn Dog That You Ever Did See

We love mutts.

All of our dogs are mutts. This is due to a mixture of not being breed fanatics, not being breeders, not wanting to keep uncut dogs, and a weakness for shelter dogs. More specifically a weakness for politically incorrect dogs.

We're familiar with the mixed bag mutts bring. Some of the best (and worst) qualities of each breed seem to be magnified with some interesting combinations. Jayne, our pitbull/Rottweiler mix, seems to have gotten a double dose of lapdog, teddy bear, and high pain tolerance. Zoe, our coonhound/Rottweiler mix, got a double dose of affectionate and trouble-making.

For weird qualities though, Wash takes the cake.

Wash is... we don't know. Obviously Doberman, some Rottweiler, and the double coat he's developing suggests German Shepherd like we always thought. His ears resemble a bat, his tail is a lethal weapon, and he's got incredible hearing. All wrapped in a 60 or so lb lapdog and companion.

This dog follows me everywhere. Whatever I'm doing, he's there. He sits and waits by the gate when I go get the mail. He's the first to show up when I get home from wherever.



That's normal, very attached pack behavior. Wash is not normal.

Wash is a pyro.

Seriously.

There's the typical "hound dog lying at the hearth" fireplace behavior. Then there's doggy pyro territory.

On the 4th we set off our fireworks in the yard. The kids were watching from the top deck, Chris was setting off the fireworks and sitting 10 feet away, and I was sitting 15 feet away on the bottom steps with the hose ready.

Jayne watched the fireworks with the kids. Wash watched the fireworks with me. Totally unafraid, tail wagging.

The louder the fireworks got, the closer to them he went. The brighter, the closer. The higher the keen of the sound, the closer he went. He was "investigating" with his tail wagging.

I finally had to hold him back because he got too close.

I've seen dogs run away from fireworks. I've never see a dog run towards them though.

Oddest damn dog.

Mel

The Dogs Won the Battles, but We Won the War

Ever since we've moved up here, we've had dog issues.

Where we lived in Scottsdale we had a 6 ft wood fence around the entire yard. The dogs would occasionally push past us going through the front door, or even jump out a window, but mostly they respected the fence.

That changed when we arrived in Idaho. Here we have a 4 ft chain link fence, and acres and acres of wonderful sounds and smells around us.

Zoe (our coonhound/Rottweiler mix) and Wash (our Doberman/Rott/Pit/Shepherd mix) became little escape artists. Zoe escaped for the thrill, but would come right back. Wash escaped to go explore, and go visiting.

They found tons of holes under the (poorly done) fence to get out through. For weeks we had a routine: let the dogs out, watch the dogs escape, plug the holes.

That got old.

Then we decided to chicken wire the holes. We made it through a few, until I did some more advanced brush clearing and discovered 300 ft of possible hole spots. Pretty much half of our fence was so poorly done that the 5 inches of clearance needed for Zoe to get the idea to dig existed through half the fence.

We decided to install an electrified fence.

Not one of the "buried wire" invisible dog fences with collars. Those are unreliable, and our dogs are large and pain tolerant.

We picked up an electric livestock fence kit.

We now have two lines of visible wire surrounding the yard, 4-6 inches inside the chain link fence and 6 and 14 inches above the ground.

When we initially hooked it up the controller to test it, and the charge was weak and barely noticeable to me and Chris. Yesterday I spend most of the day finishing running the fence and clearing any brush that was interfering with the fence.

The felt charge tripled, though I didn't think it felt like much.

I am not a 45 lb coonhound mix, though, so we turned the dogs out yesterday afternoon.

Jayne (our 110 lb Rott/Pit mix) was the first to discover the fence. The fence doesn't shock until it has a second or so of contact, so he nudged it a few times to make sure it was there without any effect.

Then he touched his nose to it for long enough.

He yelped and ran 3 of his own lengths away.

Zoe did essentially the same thing a few minutes later, with the same effect.

Wash took longer. He nudged more than a few times, very tentatively, testing the new object. For a bit I thought he may be tougher that Jayne.

Then he tried to go through the fence.

He yelped and ran back to the house and up the stairs, yelping the entire way.

Success!

Later yesterday Jayne decided to test the fence again, just to make sure.

The shock still worked. He yelped and ran again.

I think we may finally have a solution.