OUTSMARTING THE DOGS

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It’s a sad day when you realize your dog is smarter than you.

I came to this unfortunate conclusion after several nights of trying to keep both of my dogs in the kitchen overnight. I would have had a better chance keeping OJ off the golf course.

It all started a few weeks ago when my wife said (quite possibly with a megaphone), "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! THESE DOGS ARE NOT SLEEPING IN THE BEDROOM ANYMORE!"

Our beloved beasts, Montgomery and Maggie, had always slept in the bedroom, often on top of us. I always just assumed that’s where dogs were supposed to sleep (curled up on your wife’s shoulder as she tried to sleep).

But, with the combination of Montgomery’s mad scratching and Maggie’s occasional carpet mistakes, my wife had had enough. The dogs, she decreed, were being banished from the bedroom. I could send them outside, I could send them to the kitchen, I could send them to a Cambodian restaurant. They just had to get out out out.

Quick side note: My wife loves these dogs, so don’t get me wrong. It’s just that she also loves sleep, and at the moment, the dogs were the direct reason for the lack of sleep being attained, so you can see why the frustration level was rising.

We decided that they would be kept in the kitchen overnight, which was as far away from our bedroom as possible while still being in our house, although my wife would have been fine with a location beyond our house, such as Madagascar.

Another quick note: I know that many of you are screaming at your newspapers, "USE A BABY GATE, GENIUS!" This opening is 48". The standard baby gate goes to 42". Some of the gates expand to a larger width, but you have to use tools to install those, and we all know what that can lead to. That’s right – Mike permanently attached to the kitchen wall with a wood screw and a baby gate latch.

My first attempt to keep them in the kitchen was to give them a stern, "STAY!" Apparently, to my dogs, "Stay" means "Run past Mike and into the bedroom." It became clear to me that there would have to be some sort of road block. Yes, be glad I was not the one planning the Normandy Invasion.

My second attempt at corralling them was to move all of the kitchen chairs in front of the door opening. As I stood back admiring my brilliant solution, I noticed one dog, and then a second dog, scurry under the chairs and back to the bedroom.

Hmm. A definite flaw in the system, I thought. My solution to this was simple – drape a blanket over the chairs, thus removing an obvious escape point. I figured that if the escape hatch was not visible, everything would be fine.

I had no sooner turned to walk to the bedroom when two dogs zoomed past me, excited as can be at the new obstacle course I had erected for them.

It was clear that I would have to elevate my game to come out on top. I decided it was time to call in the big guns. There was only way to solve this problem: "Honey, I can’t get those @$%#@$!# dogs to stay in the kitchen. If you want ‘em in there, you figure something out."

Well, that was all it took, and in no time flat I was checking into a hotel for the evening.

No, only kidding! My wife agreed to solve the unsolvable problem. The next day, while I was at work, my wife and mother put their collective heads together and came up with a solution: they would attach some fabric between two shower curtains, and the contraption could be lodged against the frame, keeping the dogs in place.

Well aren’t they smart, you must be thinking. Ha! I am thinking. They neglected one small detail – my dogs have heads that could be used to drive railroad spikes. Realizing that they could not simply slip through any potential openings, they just bowled it over, like the T-rex in Jurassic Park did to that Jeep. Only these are dogs. And not computer generated. And Sam Neill is nowhere to be found.

But I digress. So that is where we are. We have managed to keep them in the kitchen by combining my wife’s and mother’s smarts with my ability to move numerous objects. As it is now, every night, I put up the two shower curtains, and then stack clothes hampers, tables, chairs, lamps, Sam Neill – anything I can find to keep them blockaded in.

It’s not the ideal situation, and I am sure that, at some point, my wife and I will get around to coming up with a more practical solution. I have a few ideas, but I first have to find the phone number to Madagascar.