Houdini - Escape from Los Feliz

The little cheeky monkey!

Ben said to me when we first arrived, we will know we are settled in when PJ is finally comfortable and less "sketched-out". And I have to admit, we were getting there. We may be reading a little too much into dog-psychology.. but i believe in that transfer or energy crap (and crystals and enya - don't judge).

PJ has had a lot to grow accustom to:

1) Yard - Imagine living a life in which the only time you are outdoors you are kept on a 3 foot leash. Can you also imagine pooping and peeing on said leash? Then all of a sudden you are allowed to go outside on your own free will? Talk about an existential crisis or Cartesian dilemma... whatever you classify it as, it was some heavy shit

2) Skunk - Imagine you are in said "yard" and you encounter a black and white nasty, hissing and scary rodent. For weeks, PJ thought that the yard had a keeper and that keeper was one bad ass, ying and yang looking mo-fo.

3) Dogdoor - PJ no longer has his dog-walker during the weekday, instead we have replaced this service with a dog door. Talk about a shitty deal and only adding insult to injury, we decided to "teach" PJ how to use the dog door after having a little too much to drink. Poor PJ was being pushed through the door, back and forth like some inhumane (but entertaining) drinking game. We learned two things, PJ is a pretty easy dog to train and neither Ben nor I fit through the door.

4) Crappy Dog Park - Oh how we miss prospect park, our dog park is located between 134 and the 5 freeway and has one patch of grass that is quarantined by orange construction mesh. So needless to say, PJ doesn't get off leash much... except for in his yard, when the skunk is MIA.

Taking into account the above mentioned things... the events of Tuesday, April 1st were inevitable.

I was out at a business lunch when I got the call: "PJ has escaped from the yard, some woman has him in her backyard... I am going to pick him up now". My heart sunk as I pictured our little pound puppy scared and alone in our East LA neighborhood, one wrong turn and he could have ended up on Hilhurst or (parish the thought) Sunset. Ben picked him up and brought him back home. He barricaded the dog door with a cardboard box and his drum and then returned to the office.

Then when I was on my way home (6:00ish), I got a call from Ben: "He did it again... PJ got out, some woman called me and they picked him up". Ben gave me the number and I called the woman immediately, "Oh, yeah, hope you don't mind we picked him up. He is just running errands with us, we have him in our car. Where do you live, we will come and drop him off"!

How nice is that! Amazing, I gave the woman our address and they came by 15 minutes later. A cute couple in their early 30's, two toddlers in the back seat and PJ, sitting up and looking out the back seat window. As if this was just a casual playdate. I gave the woman a big hug and asked if I could do anything to re-pay her. At first I was going to offer my babysitting services, but thought better of it, as I doubt this couple was going to think I was capable of taking care of two tiny human beings, when I could barely keep my canine under lock and key. We made introductions, they were incredibly nice and we both went our separate ways.

Back inside the house, I noticed that the barrier for the dog door was intact. There was a tiny 5 inch opening between the dog door and the cardboard box, and there was no way that our lovable but very uncoordinated dog was going to fit through that small space, so inevitably the conspiracy theories started to build.

The leading contender, was our neighbor, we will call him "gay", complained about PJ crying while we were gone. He also has a tendency for parking in our designated parking spot and complaining about the construction going on next door. During one of our interactions with him that started with the phrase, "Hey, I hate to be the annoying neighbor, but..." he mentioned that he used to have keys to our apartment as he used to walk the Chihuahua that lived here before us. Well if that isn't foreshadowing I don't know what is... Ben and I were convinced that our neighbor was unlocking our door and letting PJ out, because he was a passive aggressive dog hater. While Ben and I were mapping out our neighbors elaborate dog escaping plot, PJ snuck around the cardboard box and went out the dog door.

So Ben and I are learning a couple of things while in LA:

1) Our dog is a scheming Houdini who is only 5 inches think (never under-estimate the power of fur).

2) Strangers are incredibly accommodating in our neighborhood

3) Perhaps we should ask our neighbor is he wants to walk PJ - I mean he already has keys

4) Perhaps Ben's theory is not particularly accurate... the dog seems fine, it's us that still can't shake that New York neurosis.