We had just finished up a very nice two mile walk. We went in through the garage since it was a wet out and Luke's paws were muddy. We've been working on sit and stay and he's been doing pretty good. "
Sit!" Down he went. "
Stay!" He looks at me, panting, tongue rolling out the side of his mouth. "
Yeah boss - got it - staying...." Since he's doing so well I took off his walking harness and turned to reach for the towel. I turned back to reach for Luke's paw. No Luke. He had completely vanished.
When it comes to running Luke has two speeds. There's fast - which is a twitch under the neighborhood speed limit of 25. Then there's what I call blurry. I call it this because that's all you see - a light brown blur as he streaks by. This dog is freaky fast. As he runs his back paws actually come in front of the rest of him. He grips the ground with his nails and literally tears it past him with every bit of strength he has. He runs so fast that I think he forms his own gravity well in space time (for the non-physics geeks the mass of an object actually increases as it approaches the speed of light and large masses create large gravity wells). He gets blurry because the light is unable to escape the gravitational pull. This dog is a mobile black hole.
I walked out in front of the house and looked up and down the street. No Luke. By this time about 5 seconds had past. He could be in South America by now.
The first time he "escaped" was after he pulled a Houdini trick which is why he wears a harness instead of the traditional collar and leash. Once again we were out in the garage and he was on his leash. He saw the open garage door, spinned to face me, twisted his head, stepped backwards, and his collar magically dropped to the floor. He looked up at me with a mischievous, playful look and then went blurry and was gone. I gave chase and he lead me on a 45 minute tour of the neighborhood that spanned six blocks through yards and the townhouses behind us. People looked out their windows as I tore through their back yards screaming
"Luke! Come! Stay!" Women pushed their bewildered children behind them as a fast moving brown blur went by followed by a screaming maniac holding a leash with an empty collar. I cornered him in a back yard and he began running large figure eights crossing in front of me just out of reach. He thought this was great fun. I thought he'd look great stuffed and mounted to a wall.
I really didn't want a repeat performance. I jogged down to the end of the street and saw him eight houses a way. I called out to him, made sure I had his attention, told him to come, and then began walking away hoping that he'd follow. A light brown blur whizzed by my left side and suddenly materialized into Luke about ten feet in front of me. He was sitting calmly and panting like a freight train. "
Hey boss, still staying...". I approached slowly, clipped on the leash, and we walked back home as if nothing had happened.
The bad news is he's still a long long way from me trusting him off the leash. No trail runs, no frisbee on the beach. Not this summer anyways. The good news is that at least he's making some progress. A little slower than I'd like but still going in the right direction. He finally knows that his name is Luke and will respond to basic commands if his ADD (he definitely has Attention Deficit Disorder) isn't in full tilt. He's definitely a challenge but at some point in the future the memories we'll have and the stories we'll tell will make it all worth it.
