How Did She Do That??

This morning was beautiful.  It was a little chilly, (52 degrees), but sunny and clear.  Our back yard is huge, and fenced with a 6 ft wooden privacy fence, so when it's nice in the mornings, I leave Val (our dog) outside when I have to go out for a little while.  I left her outside this morning when I took Nathan to school.  I could see her little face looking between the slats in the gate as we pulled out of the driveway.  When I returned, she was happily roaming the cul-de-sac we live on.  WHAT??  How did she get out of the back yard??  Oh man, someone must have left the gate unlatched, and the wind blew it open.  Luckily for her, and me, she was excited to see me and came right in the house with me, so I didn't have to chase her all over the neighborhood.  I checked the gate.  It was tightly latched.  I walked the fence line, looking for a hole big enough to admit a 63 pound mutt.  Nothing.  How did she get out??  Back where I started, at the gate, I looked up.  Surely there is no way she could jump a 6 ft fence.  She may be 63 pounds, but she's only 2 1/2 feet tall!  Then I saw it.  Marks on the top of the fence.  No way, I thought.  The kids must have done that somehow.  I went to the other side, and what I saw confirmed that I was wrong.  There were marks in the mulch (and weeds) where she had landed.  Then there was her behavior.  She had excitedly followed me around while I checked for holes, (think, "Whatcha doing mom???  Can I help???"), until I got back to this spot.  She wouldn't come near me as long as I was over there, and she had her head down, all excitement drained from her doggy body.  She knew she had done something wrong, and she knew she had done it there.  Unless I get a nanny cam and put it up over there, I will never know how, exactly, she did it, but I do know that she did it.  She jumped the fence!  It's funny, but it's not.  Whenever we go out of town, we leave her in the back yard and put her crate, food, and water on the screened in porch, with the screen door open so she has access to shelter, and outside.  She's a very nervous dog, so when we have boarded her in the past, she doesn't eat the entire time, and is very sickly when we bring her home.  We can't stand doing that to her.  She is much happier to stay home, even though she is unhappy that her people are gone.  Now, with only two weeks left until spring break, and with plans already made to visit my uncle in Panama City Beach for four days that week, she jumps the fence.  Now she must be boarded.  I'm going to worry about her the entire time we are gone.  I'd have worried about her anyway, but now I'm going to worry more.  Dumb dog!  She just made things infinitely worse for herself, and me!  I wish there was some way I could tell her this.  Ugh! 

I know what you're thinking.  Maybe she jumped up on that little shelf on the other side of the window, and then jumped up to the top of the fence.  The only problem with that, is that little pot on the shelf would have fallen.  That shelf has no base and is very wobbly, she'd have not only knocked the pot down, but the shelf probably would have been knocked down too with the force of her push off.

I'm standing next to the shelf to take this picture.  That's a LONG jump from the shelf to the fence.  Another clue against using the shelf as part of her escape.

 The telltale marks on the top of the fence.

The front side of the fence.  Can you see the disturbance in the mulch?

Can you see the disturbance in the mulch now?  Maybe only I can see it because I know what it's supposed to look like.  This does remind me, though, that I need to pull up that weed screening.  You can see what a bang up job it's doing.  :-P