Lock your Car Windows!

My husband thinks I'm paranoid. I'm constantly thinking about the "what-if's" of what the dogs could get into, what they could do while I'm out of the house, and what they might even try to do right under my nose. I don't leave the windows open when I leave the house unless they're high windows, in case the dogs see a squirrel outside and decide to try to bust through the screen to hunt it. I insist that the dogs ALWAYS walk with their harnesses on, because I'm afraid they might slip their collars on a walk (even though they've never shown a propensity to do so). I don't leave rawhides out when I'm gone, for fear that the dogs may fight and/or choke on them. When we went house-hunting, I insisted on having a porch with a railing so we can install a swing-gate, so that I don't have to worry about the dogs bolting out the front door. Plus, of course, there's the usual basenji stuff: Don't leave items too close to the edges of tables or countertops that you wouldn't want to part with. Keep the lid on the trash can at all times. Put the fluffy pillows up on top of the TV before you leave the house unless you want to come home to an indoor "snow shower" in your living room. You know, the usual stuff. But, as prepared as I am, somehow my basenjis still manage to surprise me sometimes.

Case in point: Three summers ago when I got my first basenji, Reef, we used to always take her up to the beach to go walking after hours. Every time we'd get in the car and head in the direction of the beach, she'd go completely bananas and start bouncing off the walls inside the car. One summer Saturday afternoon I put Reef in the car with me to go to the dog park (since dogs aren't allowed on the beach during peak hours), but I had to stop by the beach on my way there. As I'm sitting in bumper to bumper traffic inching along next to the boardwalk, Reef is going nuts inside the car. In her frenzy, she inadvertently steps on the power window button on the passenger's side door, and before I even knew what was going on the window was halfway down and my dog leaped out of the moving car!

Panic doesn't even begin to describe what I felt in that moment. Thankfully the traffic was only inching along in both directions, so the leap out of the car didn't hurt her and the car coming in the opposite direction saw what had happened. I wrenched my car over into the emergency fire lane next to the boardwalk, yelled to the guy in the car behind me to keep traffic stopped for a minute or two, and took off running down the street after my dog.

It's a good thing that my dog has a one-track mind, because on that Saturday all she wanted to do was just go to the beach (and who wouldn't?). As soon as she found a ramp up to the raised boardwalk, she was on it and over it and down onto the sand. Once there, she ran around like mad for a few minutes, but there were enough people there to sniff that soon she succumbed to her curiosity. Once she stopped to sniff, I pounced on her in an instant!

As I headed back to the car with a naughty little dog under my arm, of course the always-friendly NJ beach staff had to make a point to tell me that dogs are not allowed on the beach. I thought: Did my mad chase look like I was trying to just waltz onto the beach with my dog? What I said instead was that I was very sorry for the trouble; my dog had just escaped my car by putting the window down herself. The beach attendant scoffed and told me that was ridiculous; no dog can do that! I showed him my car in the fire lane, with the door still standing open and the passenger window halfway down, and as I walked away I told him that he needed to read up on basenjis.

So, am I paranoid? I think not! Add "keep car windows locked" to the basenji precautions list, and keep on your toes for the next thing they'll surprise you with!