Tales of the Doggy Door

When we moved to Arizona, our house had a doggy door. It took a few times of putting our dog Allie through it to get her to use it. Once she got the hang of it, it was nice to have her own way to get in and out. At first the doggy door seemed like a wonderful idea. Then our cat figured out how it worked. She was supposed to be an indoor cat, however Gracie was having none of that. It didn't seem like a big deal at first. Then Gracie started to use the door to bring us "presents". Our nanny at the time, Jenn, found a dead mouse inside Cara's fun tent. Yuck! Then there was the live mouse that she trapped in the pantry, and a few others. She eventually caught them all and sadly assisted them in their departure from earth. One day Chris discovered a live bird in the house, thanks again Gracie. He managed to get bird out the front door. For something different one day Gracie brought in a live snake. My poor friend Jenn was here for that too. She and Chris trapped the snake in a Tupperware container with a cardboard top. He took it outside and threw it over the fence. Luckily up to this point I had missed all of Gracie's shenanigans.

Things were quiet for a little while. Then one night at 12:45 am I hear the weirdest sound of my life. It sounded like a squeaky toy, over and over again. Well I wasn't about to get out of bed and investigate, so I woke Chris up. After he went to the kitchen I hear him call my name. So I ask him if I am going to be scared or freak out, and he told me no. Gracie had brought a live bunny in the house and it was screaming. That was the squeaky noise I heard. So I lock the dog in our room, and get Gracie out of the way. Chris scoops the bunny up in a small trash bin and takes it out front to release it. All is good and back to bed. Next night we go to bed and at 5:30 am we are awoken again by the same squeaky toy noise. So we are out of bed and scooping another bunny up and letting it go out the front door.

Well after all of this we got smarter and started locking up the dog door each night so the animals couldn't get out. We would find Gracie and get her inside when we could, but sometimes she wouldn't come home. Then we would hear her around 5 am trying to get, or if she stayed in we would hear her scratching to go out at 5. We did this for quite a while. Then we started to trust her again as the weather got colder and less animals were out and about. She stopped bringing things in. One evening we were watching tv with the kids and Jenn. Again we hear the squeaky toy noise. She brought in a bunny while we were awake! Man she was getting brave.

Then we get a few quiet months. Gracie was behaving. One night Gracie & Allie were in with us and we hear the dog door open and close. Chris looks and a stray cat had come in our door. What in the world?! Gracie quickly chased that cat out the door. It was bizarre quite honestly. We all go to bed and try to sleep. In the middle of the night all heck breaks loose. The stray cat was back and Gracie & Allie were not pleased. Chris managed to shut Gracie in Cara's room. Allie followed the stray in to our bathroom where it made god awful noises and scared our poor dog. I shut Allie in Allan's room. Then we went through the house shutting all of the doors so the cat had only one way out and we managed to get it to go out through the dog door. Having a doggy door in this house has been quite the exhausting adventure :-)

There are some benefits. Allie doesn't have to wait all day to go potty and can get some exercise while we are at work. Gracie doesn't use a litter box at all anymore, we actually got rid of it. I would just like all of the extra critters to stay out and for Gracie to leave her presents outside. Hopefully this will be the only installment of Tales of the Doggy Door, because I really don't want anymore stories to tell.