The wisdom of a temporary granddog fence…

I love dogs.  I’ve had “brother” dogs, “son” dogs and now “granddaughter” and “grandson” dogs.

I love my granddogs.  I love having them at my home.  I love their company.  I love their antics.  These 3 beautiful grandpups belong to my daughter Jane and her husband Brian…

I’m a pretty cool cat of a Dog Grandma, if I do say so myself.  I don’t mind the left-behind hair/fur/shedding/drool (easy enough to vacuum, Swiffer, wipe).  I don’t mind the extra laundry that comes with covering each bed with large sheets (don’t like dog hair on/in my beds.)  I even let my granddogs sleep on my couches, a total no-no as a long-ago DogMama (keep the hand-vac handy).  It’s all worth the unconditional love of a pup or three…

The thing I do mind is the wanderlust; not because I don’t understand it, but because I would be beyond heartbroken if something happened to any of them out there in this great big world of ours.  My husband Barry and I moved to this fence-less home of ours last May; we haven’t lived anywhere without a fenced-in yard for as long as I can remember.

This leaves me with a dilemma. A no fence dilemma at my home on a busy street.  A home with a large back yard that slopes to a bike path… a path that goes all the way to Providence and then some; oh, 15 miles or so and then some.

During visits with their Mommy/Daddy, aka Jane and Brian, it’s easy enough to get their 3 dogs from the car to my back porch and into my home (Jane and Brian also take their dogs for long, unleashed walks in the park each morning for fun and exercise).  Ryder, 11, actually wouldn’t run toward the street or bike path if you bribed her with a slab of beef.  She loves to be near, to snuggle, to run and play when it’s time to run and play, but to always behave, baby.  She’s been this way since forever.

Tansy, 4, is also a snuggle-bunny, but she loves to explore.  Exploration is the definition my back yard (and then some).  Tansy has taken off on her chase of squirrels, geese, cats, skunks, moles and fellow canines.  She would never catch or hurt anything; it’s the thrill of the chase.  I’m not quite this cool cat of a Dog Grandma to let Tansy go exploring.

Jethro, 1, is… well, Ponce de Leon, Columbus, Magellan, Cortes, daGama, Drake, Marco Polo, Henry Hudson, Byrd, Neil Armstong AND Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark (all 3 of them).  Jethro knows there’s a new territory, a new continent, a new ocean or lake or river, a new planet, a new frontier out there that no-one has yet discovered.  Until now. Until him.  Jethro has taken off at the mere presentation of a shadow, never mind all the other places to see, kids to lick, cyclists to scare the daylights out of with his size and enthusiasm for life.  I’m not quite this cool cat of a Dog Grandma to let Jethro go wanderlusting.

Did I mention that Barry and I don’t have a fenced-in yard?

So what to do, what to do when Jane and Brian go away for a few days and Barry and I are granddogsitting?

I’ll tell you what to do; well, more like what I insist for my temporary sanity.  A temporary fence.   I don’t care how small it is, what it looks like, how it’s built or held together, how unaesthetic it appears from the street or that I must go all around to the front of my house to get inside my home.  I don’t need gates, openings, closings, hooks, latches or symmetry.

I just need temporary safety. Temporary Sanity. I need to open my back door and let 3 doggies run outside, untethered and free.  Well, not really free; but, rather, free from acting on the instinct to explore all the way to Providence and then some.

Solution:

And some granddoggie commentary on the whole idea…

Maybe tomorrow, I can hear Tansy and Jethro thinking.

But once inside, I’ve got my best buds back.  Wanderlust is an outside only game…

There is not one moment of inside that Ryder, Tansy and Jethro are not surrounding me.  Yes, they love me.  They really, really LOVE ME!

Temporary Sanity is the cool cat Dog Grandma’s meow.