This article was first published in the Amarillo Pioneer in September 2017.

By Trent Rosser

It has been a little while since I have wrote about Hunter the dog. So I figured it was about time. Plus he is right here staring holes in me as I try to eat. He has already eaten of course, but according to him, we starve him and never feed him! Last night he pulled something that was amazing. Wait, stop. Let’s go back a few months. My step son brought his dog over and advises us that he can no longer keep him in his apartment. He asked if we would be able to find a home for a part boxer and part pit bull dog and proceeded to leave the dog at our house. Now, Hunter is a good dog. He does what he is told and usually doesn’t cause trouble. Now we have the other dog. His name is Hades. He is too a good dog and usually does not cause trouble. Unfortunately when these two dogs get together….. they cause all kinds of mischief. When we moved into the new place, the backyard was huge. Plenty of room for both of them to run and play. There was a small hole in the fence that I had to repair, but it was repaired soon and all was well. Or so I thought. Suddenly, there was another hole, and it was a small one. Just big enough for the small Hades to escape out of, or again, so I thought, until I saw a 90 pound dog squeeze through. Imagine a Saint Bernard trying to escape out of the cat door. That’s kinda what it looked like except Hunter was covered in dirt! He made it pretty quick when I yelled! So, now I have hole number 2 to fix. So my wife and I (ok, so it was my wife) came to the conclusion that the last place we lived in I had a couple of dog holes cut in the fence so they could see out. That is what I needed to do. So I cut 1 small hole, it lasted a day before some reason they chewed it up and escaped. At this point I decided to rename them from “Hunter” and “Hades” to “Harry” and "Houdini."

So a little time goes by and all the holes are fixed. My wife notices a small hole UNDER the fence. “I will fix it tomorrow” I said. Tomorrow never comes. Then I received the dreaded phone call. “Mr Rosser, your dogs are out and running up and down the neighborhood. They need to be picked up before someone calls the pound!” I did the only thing that I knew to do and to put the fear of God into the dogs……. I called my wife! When she came home, they came right up to her and then all hell broke loose. She was screaming and yelling for them to get back in the house. So they went in the front door, out the back door and about a minute later they were back at the front door. She kept them in the house until I could come home and fix the “small” hole that they dug up under the fence. When I came home, the small hole was now a subterranean colony! I almost had to bring in a couple of big rigs filled with sand to fill in what they had dug. I was almost afraid to go into the tunnel under the fence. I might not have made it out. “Ok, now it’s on! I will not let you two get the best of me!”

So, it was with great reluctance, and great heartache that I had to do what I did. I bought and installed an electric fence. Now it is safe to say that when I was patching holes or bringing a tractor to fill in the “Great Tunnel of Texas” they were not happy. Hunter would actually come and try to get me to play and distract me while Hades would chew up my tools. Shovel, drill, whatever I had at the time. Hades always stayed back though, he knew that they were in trouble. Hunter really didn’t care either way. After I finished putting up the fence I was walking along it wondering if I should test it out on myself first. Thankfully Hunter was the hero, (he didn’t mean to be) and was walking along beside me and he stepped on it. Hunter has yelped twice his entire life of 2 years. Once when my wife popped him on the nose as he was a puppy and the other time was when he stepped on the wire. Hunter yelped and went to the other side of me and looked at me like a deer in the headlights. I couldn’t tell if he was mad or shocked? Which in a way, he was shocked. I did feel bad so I let him in the front yard for a minute but Hades was hiding so he did not come out front. As I was talking with the neighbor about the “Hotwire” we hear Hades yelp and dirt and dust flying. Yep, he was trying to dig again. We had to keep both of them locked in the house for a few days while we were at work. Now, they stay in the yard without a problem. But I still get the point that they want to kill me!

Now we used to let the dogs sleep with us during the winter months.

Unfortunately Hunter kept hogging the bed and stealing the covers. He will not let me get close to my wife and he hates it when I reach over to try to kiss her goodnight. So, since it has been nice the last few months, they have been sleeping outside. One of the last things I do before I go to bed is to make sure all the doors are locked. Apparently I forgot the other night. At 3am my wife wakes me up asking why I let the dogs in? I roll over and what I thought was a blanket next to me was Hunter. At the foot of the bed was Hades. I got up, and somehow, they were able to get the back door open and they actually pushed it closed. Not all the way, but enough to stop any other critter from coming inside. Not a sound was heard; and how did they get in the bed without either one of us knowing. I know, they have been practicing. They are ninja dogs!! I just wanted to go back to bed, but, Hunter would not let me. He took up the entire side of the bed that I sleep on. I finally told my wife something has to change! There is no way I am sleeping with both the dogs in the bed. My wife agreed that it was too crowded for her, me and the dogs. So she handed me a blanket and said “Don’t forget."