Apologies for this becoming the “How the hell did my dog do that?” blog, but this evening I let him out into the backyard. There’s a hole in the backyard fence. I know this because back in February he used it to get all the way out of the yard and to the street behind our house, twice in one day.

I have his harness attached to a 30-foot-long line so that he can still roam the backyard, and I don’t have to worry. In theory.

I let him out in the yard, and then I’m sitting here inside. He’s starting to yelp, and I’m thinking, Oh, he’s barking at some dog in a neighboring yard or something. The yelping gets kind of piercing, and I start to think, Oh no, maybe he’s gotten into some tussle with some rodent or something.

I go out, and he’s all the way at the other end of the yard. He sees me, wags his tail, and I come over. He comes over to me. His 30-foot-long line is wrapped around the bushes in the very back of the yard, and I pull because he’s gotten stuck in the bushes. He’s gotten it wound around the bushes…and the line is not attached to the hook anymore. There’s a big metal ring dangling from the end of it.

So somehow he pulled that off of the hook that is screwed into the dirt with a 6-inch spike, basically, that has a corkscrew shape. Either he pulled it, or it fell apart or something? He got all the way to the other side of the yard, and the only reason that I am not roaming the neighborhood looking for him again is because he got tangled up in the shrubs.

I don’t even know how he did that.