this is way before saints and I was living in a normal house in town.
I came home from work and my neighbor was in her garden planting flowers. I stopped to say hello and she said...where did copper go, he was just here a second ago? he has been helping me garden for the past couple of hours.
hmmm..it appears the little bugger made a new swinging fence board door to get in and out of the yard, and I was going to have to go looking for him.
I went in the house to dump off my keys and change into my runners and there was the fat little bastard upside down on the couch pretending to be fast asleep. as soon as he heard my car, he hauled his fat ass back into the yard and the house so I wouldn't know he'd been out.
that tricky bugger wanted me to think he had been there all day to protect his newest escape hatch.
busted.
I went out with the hammer and nails and methodically started banging on fence boards..i eventually found the swinging one and nailed it shut on him.
and as I turned around, I saw copper sitting quietly in the very middle of the yard, watching me lock him down once again.
I can still see him sitting there and I am sure he was planning his next great escape and how to keep me from catching on to it next time around.
we spent 13 years outsmarting each other about pretty much everything..counter and inside of cupboards surfer (he eventually learned how to open and empty the fridge!), escape artist, howlaholic, peeing wherever and whenever he felt like it in the house. he'd steal everything from food, to panties, to cigarette packs, to paint brushes soaking in paint thinner.....he'd get his chuckles encouraging the blind foster dogs to chase him, then for fun...run them smack into a tree.
one day on his walk about town...he took Wilbur, the mentally challenged pug and sam the giant old palliative shepherd with him! I found him cheerfully leading them down the sidewalk of Dewdney trunk road..i could have killed him that day!!!
you'd win some. you'd lose some.
copper won quite a lot.
it was just how it was.
miss you copper, you were the very best of really bad good dogs.
Oh so funny! Beagles can be such bastards. Such smart determined creatures. Love love love your stories detailing his shenanigans.