Loving a foxhound is not for the faint of heart LOL. But if you are following this, you already know that these girls are essentially super curious toddlers who have super powered athleticism. So, there you have it. The gritty truth. No secrets here. Again, you just have to respect their nature. There is no point in fighting it…best just to embrace it and move on with life.

So, to that end, I have embraced that one of their many gifts is their built in “fence vulnerability detector”. It’s just so thoughtful of them to find the weaknesses in our fence for us LOL! When you zoom out on this situation for a moment, you can start to see how it would do nicely in a New Yorker comic strip…our own little version of cat and mouse between the super-powered fence vulnerability detectors vs the clunky humans…only in real life, the game is actually quite serious. When these girl’s escape, as they did again (for the 3rd time) this past Monday, they ROAM. Check this out:

At least this time their route did not include the county highways or any of our neighbor’s farmsteads 🤦🏼‍♀️, but each time their superpowers evade our defences, they are at real risk. And not just to themselves.

Let me just take a moment to both admire the breed but also scratch my head a little bit. Let’s face it, they are some of the most majestic – I mean I really see majesty when I look at them – dogs on the planet. They are just breathtakingly beautiful. And their scenting and endurance capabilities are truly stunning.

But the flip side of this is that we now have a breed of dogs…dogs who unfortunately are frequently illegally bred…whose job of hunting fox essentially no longer exists, save for a very slight minority of these dogs and in very specific places in the world. But of course these dogs didn’t get that memo. The instinct remains deeply engrained in their brains. So much so that without intensive off leash training (which in most cases requires either substantial investment of time and/or money), their lives are literally at risk anytime they are off leash outside of a securely fenced in area. At least I can attest to that being true for Lilly, Nellie and Sally.

It’s not to say that they can’t live really happy and fulfilled lives unless they are able to hunt fox, but it does require substituting that job with some other activity, or ideally combinations of activities, of prime interest to these dogs. Nose games, canicross, mantrailing, hiking, some version of doggy playdates (backyard, doggy daycare, dog park), etc.

In any case, what it boils down to when we focus back in to the moment at hand, this is what I have spent most of my time doing the past couple of days:

Foxhounds 1…

…and humans 1

…and Dig Defence goin’ in for the win!

Humans Catching On:

Never, ever, ever gonna work…

Getting warmer…

Not bad…

I double dog dare ya :)

Okay, so not ideal for use as an actual gate (although it does swing both ways), and not the prettiest to look at, but it’ll do for now. At least the girls are a bit flummoxed for the moment ;)

But no doubt they’ll keep searching. And as the weather continues to warm and the ground softens, look out humans!

Truthfully, thankfully, we have the Dig Defence to go around the perimeter. The tynes go 8 inches into the ground, which means the girls will have to go to engineering school to figure out how to dig under those. What a wonderful invention! I’m so glad to be able to share that there are real and durable solutions out there, and it is also nice to realize that we are obviously not the only people on the planet who have had to contend with this problem.

In the end, everything is figuroutable :) Yes, these girls’ care is more challenging than a lot of pups out there. But not impossible by a long shot. A little more effort, and a little more time with the right human/s, and it’s a love story just ready to unfold. There will never be a day that goes by where these girls won’t let you know how incredibly grateful they are. And no matter how tired you are at the end of the day, the hard will never outweigh the good. I promise 💖

P.S. There are lots of really good people in this world who are willing to help out, as well. I believe a lot more people would adopt dogs if they had just a little extra help. All you have to do is ask :)