Our sweet Trev escaped the other day. Neither of our pups are escape dogs. They have a good life here. Two humans who dote on them, a large yard to roam around in, plenty of good food and affection.
But this remodel has been stressful on both dogs. On nicer days when workers are here, Nina will spend the entire day outside, coming inside when I call her for dinner. Trev likes to be inside if we are inside and outside when we are out. He is not one to hang out in the yard all day on his own.
For the first eight weeks or so of the kitchen renovation, there was a plastic barrier set up between the family room where we spend most of our time and the kitchen and old part of the house where the majority of the work takes place. The plastic barrier had a zipper to seal this side of the house off from the dust and also so that we could move around the house when the work was done for the day. It was held up with large poles on either end of it, taped and nailed to the ceiling but we tripped over that damn thing at least once a day. It always sagged in the middle. Dust came over to our living space anyway. Honestly, for the most part, it was a pitiful barrier.
What that barrier was good for was not was it was intended to be good for. It was good at keeping our dogs on our side. Neither dog particularly liked stepping over the plastic and through the zipper. Nina forced herself to do it each night after dinner. She has a little nest of blankets for herself in one of the old bedrooms she likes to retreat to at the end of the day. She would cross the barrier each evening to get to her soft place.
A few days before the cabinets were installed this week, the barrier came down. Don’t get me wrong. The installers didn’t take it down. I tripped over it, again, and the whole thing fell. We moved it into the old part of the house and left it there. The contractors didn’t put it up again because the cabinets were to be installed early in the week.
So, our Trev is afraid of a few things. He doesn’t like plastic bags. Garbage bags scare him when we shake one out in preparation for putting it in the garbage bin. He also is terrified of power tools. The sound of the nail gun air compressor will send him not just to our feet but to our laps, shivering and shaking. His eyes get glossy and wild. When Tygh gets the compressor out to work on a project, Trev will sit at my feet and match my footsteps. If I move, he moves. His preference during these times is for me to be on the couch so that he can crawl up into my lap and curl himself around me while the scary thing is out.
The contractors were working on millwork last week. With a nail gun. Poor Trev. He hates the sound. I was gone for the day. Tygh was trying to work. The barrier between the scary thing and him was gone. So, he decided to fly the coop. There was an extension cord in the doorway of the door from the garage to the yard that caused the garage door to be open just slightly. The contractors had the main garage door open while they worked on cutting millwork and bringing the pieces inside.
Trev used his nose to push that door open and escape. Tygh didn’t know for about an hour that Trev was missing. He wandered around through our neighborhood and found someone who had left their front door open. He just walked right on in.
The people whose house he wandered into posted a picture of him online, Tygh saw it as he was frantically trying to find Trev. He was corralled and brought back home. We are so incredibly grateful he was found and kept safe, that he chose to stay on our side of the street and wander through the neighborhood instead of crossing our busy road and heading for the woods.
We learned a lesson. Keep Trev in a secure room while there are power tools involved.