"His name is Houdini!"

That is how I feel like answering when someone asks the question, "What's your dog's name?" We have been having dog problems if you will. Sherman is an escape artist lately and I haven't been terribly pleased with him. He will be contentedly laying in the sun, fastened to his chain and the next thing you know...he is gone. Sometimes I notice that he is gone and other times I get a phone call from someone who has intercepted him and read his tag that has his name and our number. Such was the case yesterday. I went outside to look at the perennials I had planted. Sherman was on his chain and sleeping on the porch. Ten minutes later I get a phone call from someone at the hot dog stand downtown telling me that he is there standing in line. (I guess he was hungry) The hot dog stand is three blocks away and across 4 lanes of busy traffic!!
I was horrified by this and went down to retrieve him. (He's the retriever, so why am I doing all the work?!???) There was a lady down there who proceeded to bawl me out for being an irresponsible dog owner....and if I didn't want to take better care of my dog she'd be glad to give him a home. When I told her that I didn't know how he was getting off of his chain, that set her off again. "Dogs should never be chained up! They hate being chained up and that is why he's escaping. They should be in a fenced in back yard....blah blah blah!!!" I was totally humiliated and angry at this woman. I honestly felt like punching her! (So much for being Christ-like) Luckily I had the sense to stop answering her and just take the dog and leave. I tell you though, I was so upset by the encounter!
So today after CBS, I took a ride down to the hardware store to take a look at the hooks available. I bought a hook that closes using a built in hexagon shaped bolt that you must turn several time around in order to close. I bought two of these hooks. One to hook the chain onto his collar and the other to hook the chain to the wrought iron fence. (notice in closeup-the useless spring style hook that is now dangling) So now it takes 2 minutes to put him on the chain, but at least he won't be escaping (at least I hope not).
I should also mention that when we first got this dog, we installed electric invisible fencing to contain him. Houdini figured out that if he made a run for it, he could endure the pain of being zapped...and run free!