During thunderstorms, my dog visits our neighbors

One of the most inconvenient calls possible is from neighbors in the middle of the night with information that your dog is at their house scratching on their door.

It is even more interesting when you are not home and on a 10-day outof-towner to visit family: Daughter and son-in-law, grandkids and their unbelievably well-mannered dog in comparison to ours, as you will see.

Of course, we immediately called our house/dog sitter.

She grabbed a flashlight, walked over and apprehended Toby, our Great Pyrenees.

There were thunderstorms, and he was afraid. It appeared he found an unlocked door, opened it, and escaped — outdoors where there was lightning, thunder and rain. In a dog’s brain, I guess that makes sense.

Our housesitter returned with Toby and locked said door. We thanked our kind and patient neighbors and went back to bed.

The next night at 11 p.m., thunderstorms. Phone call. Toby was back at the neighbors’ door. Our perplexed housesitter, functioning as a detective, got Toby and brought him home. After some exploring, it seems Toby jumped into our bathtub, punched out a screen and leaped through a window that is 8 feet off the ground, and escaped again.

We began thinking of appropriate gifts for our neighbors. And I start wondering what they have that we didn’t? Was this

Toby’s comment on our house? Is it too messy? Boring? Do the neighbors have better food? Are they more thunderstorm reassuring?

The next night, with the doors locked and windows secured, Toby went out the dog door into our fenced yard. We had put in a 5-foot fence specifically for large dogs. We have had Bernese Mountain dogs, but they were more the stay-at-home type of dogs. They led us to falsely believe that, like the Titanic was unsinkable or the Berlin Wall uncrossable, our fence was an impenetrable barrier.

Repetitious, I know. Night. Thunderstorms. Phone call. Toby had dug under the fence.

I began to feel we might be up against a true escape artist, a dog dedicated to teaching humans he cannot be contained. Like Houdini, he was challenging us.

As for our housesitter, it is a testament to her persistence and curiosity that she didn’t throw up her hands, give up and find a more straightforward job, like plastic surgery.

My 10-day trip ended, and I came home, hoping that with me there, Toby would stop his shenanigans. We’re bonded, right? The first night seemed promising. I sat on the couch, he jumped up and he laid his head on my lap. But, of course, minor detail, there were no storms that night. The next night, everything seemed peaceful. But it was not to be. At midnight, the call came in. Argh! I had decided to keep him in the house or in the patio that had a 6-foot adobe wall. Surely he couldn’t … but no! He jumped over the wall.

So now I thought we would volunteer to weed our still-patient neighbors’ garden.

Last night, to be extra sure, I locked us all in the house and put chairs in front of all the doors. Windows were closed, and the dog door blocked. Then I took Toby and our chihuahua mix, Maisie, who was mildly amused at this point, into our bedroom. I shut the bedroom door, put a chair in front of the door and climbed into bed. I now saw myself not as a benevolent dog guardian but instead as the warden at a federal prison. No one will escape. Toby spent most of the night panting by the door, but it worked No escapes. No midnight calls.

Proud of myself, having outwitted a too-smart-for-his-own-good Great Pyrenees, I opened the house in the morning. Windows, open. Dog door open. Because I thought Toby is content during the day, he mostly sleeps. What could go wrong?

I was outside weeding our garden for less than 15 minutes when both of our dogs, Toby and Maisie, sprinted past me, barking, down our driveway to our neighbors’. I heard our neighbor call out, “They’re both here!”

My shoulders sagged as I walked over to apologize again and wrangle our dogs. They were mocking me and my plans.

So, I know this is contrary to what everyone else is thinking — I am hoping for the end of the monsoon storms. Toby, Maisie and I need the rest.