As I type this, Ayla is running laps around the house. Normally she is not quite so wound up in the morning and I thought that since she got to play with a group of 6 dogs this morning that she might be a bit tired but apparently I was very wrong about that.

On our walk this morning (which was quite cold in my opinion and I think I did still see some front on the grass – it’s only 47 here now at 11 am so I’m guessing it was actually close to freezing), we ran into a group of women walking their dogs. There were 4 women and 6 dogs, one owning three. Most of the dogs know Ayla and really don’t care about playing with her at all, except Chippis who varies from day to day. Ayla was running around playing with various dogs for about half of the walk and I figured she would have gotten some of the energy out of her system but apparently I was wrong. She relaxed a little right after we got home but has mostly focused her efforts on digging a huge hole in the back yard.

Which brings me to Ayla’s latest back yard feat. Because she broke out of the yard twice in the last few days (once on Friday where she ended up in the living room of the people who hate us and chewed on one of their daughter’s flip-flops a bit and then again on Sunday when we came home and went to visit another dog on the block who really doesn’t like her at all but thankfully the owners are very nice), we have started only letting her outside on a long leash (about 60 feet). She’s chewed through some sections of the leash but never actually took any action once she was off it and I always tie it back together, letting her know that each time I do that, her leash is only getting shorter.

But as of just now, that apparently is also not going to work. About 10 minutes ago, Ayla was calmly laying in the yard, enjoying the cold weather. But our doorbell just rang and apparently Ayla once again jumped the fence to go enjoy the neighbor’s yard, shoes, etc. Naturally she goes to visit the people that hate her – where else right? They actually at least pretended that they liked her for a while but that was apparently before she started coming to visit them every few days and chewing on their shoes. And the priceless thing is, as soon as they ring our doorbell to report she’s over there, she goes back through the hedges and this time actually came inside since I had left the front door open.

So now I guess we will actually have to stand guard with Ayla while she is outside. There will be no more lounging around out there either. She can go out, pee and then come back in. Period. She usually does her other business on our walks anyway so we shouldn’t have much trouble there.

I still haven’t figured out exactly how she’s getting out but I guess it’s over the fence by the back door. I would think I’d here her jumping it but apparently she has a lot more spring in her back legs than I realized. It’s only about 4 feet tall, if that, but she’s never tried to jump it before. Apparently an idle mind really is the Devil’s workshop…and this little Newf clearly has spent too much time just being bored.

At least at the new house she won’t be able to jump the fence…unless she really gets some spring in her step. The fence is about 9 feet tall there so she’d really be stretching it…although I clearly won’t put it past her. Am I a bit disturbed about this? Yes. Once, it’s amusing. Twice it starts to be not amusing and three times it’s clearly a problem.