Theresa Lewis

More adventures of Misty and Sasha

We had a storm door over our front door. One day, we arrived home from work and discovered that the front door was wide open, but the storm door was still closed. I was surprised because I understood my stepdaughter to say that she was going out for supper with friends. She told me she had to leave by five-thirty. It was almost six o’clock when my husband and I got home. I expected to find my stepdaughter running around the house in a flap because she was so late, but no one was home. My dad had gone to visit my brother so I just assumed that my stepdaughter had taken the dogs for a walk at the last moment.

I started making supper and half expected to see my stepdaughter come in at any moment. I heard a knock at the door. It was a neighbour who had taken the commuter train home after work. He said he had seen our dogs in the next community about two miles from home. He said they were running together and they had actually run under the train while it was in the station. I think my heart stopped for a moment when I heard that.

My husband snatched up his car keys and flew out the door. I didn’t even get a chance to run out with him. He was gone before I could blink. I went back to fixing supper. The whole time, I was raging inside about the fact that my stepdaughter had not closed and locked the front door as she was supposed to have done. Teenagers, I thought, they’re so careless at times. I was going to have it out with her when she came home.

My husband finally came home about a half hour later with the two dogs in tow. He told me he had a horrible time trying to find them. He had gone up one street and down the next until he finally found them running through someone’s back yard. He was huffing and puffing when he came in. He said he had to keep getting out of the car and running to catch up to the dogs. He, too, was angry with his daughter. He assumed the dogs had escaped when she was leaving and she didn’t think enough of them to catch them before taking off with her friends.

When my stepdaughter arrived home about nine o’clock, we were ready for her. We had simmered down quite a bit, but we still wanted to have a word with her. She swore to us that both dogs were in the house when she left and she vowed that she had locked the door like she always did. We told her about coming home and finding the front door wide open. She was shocked.

There was only one way to prove if she was telling us the truth, or not. We had to repeat the scenario. We all went outside and I personally locked the door and tested it. The next thing I knew was that suddenly the front door swung wide open. The dogs looked around outside before opening the storm door. Suddenly, the storm door burst open and the two dogs were outside. All of us were stunned. How could a dog unlock and open two doors. We had to find out.

We tried it a few times and each time they were successful in getting outside. I needed to know how they did it so I stayed in the house and hid where they couldn’t see me, but where I could still see them. They actually worked together. Sasha stood on her hind legs and turned the door handle with her paws cupped around it until the lock made a click as it released and as soon as she heard the click, Misty pulled at it with her claws until it opened. For the storm door, Sasha again stood on her hind legs and leaned on the handle until it opened. Misty would go partway through the opening and wait for Sasha to jump over her back then she would continue outside.

The lessons we learned here were to never underestimate the determination or the ingenuity of a dog. Another major lesson learned was we needed to get stronger safety locks for our doors.

More stories of the adventures of Misty and Sasha to follow.

The End