While I was out of town last weekend in Big Bear and my friend, Madeline, was dog sitting, Grace managed to somehow escape from her crate again. We have yet to determine exactly how she's doing it, and I'm beginning to think Houdini may have been a better name for her. Before she escaped, she pushed the crate off the plywood I had put it on (to prevent her getting at the carpet again through the floor of the crate) and was again able to destroy a patch of carpet. My boyfriend proceeded to spend an hour reinforcing her crate with steel wire, so she couldn't possibly squeeze out through any possible openings. He also installed a 2" steel plate along the front edge of the crate where there was an opening we thought she might be escaping from.

I had my friend, Dennis, who works with dogs, come meet Grace a week ago and give some advice to help with her separation anxiety. One thing he suggested was putting her crate in the dining room so she could be with Wally when I'm not there. Her crate is in the bedroom, and Wally usually hangs out downstairs. However, since she sleeps in her crate and will whine if she's not in the bedroom with me, this meant putting a second crate downstairs. Charles (the b/f) and I went through the same process with this crate: we cut a piece of plywood to set it on (so she can't destroy the floor) then NAILED the crate to the board (so she can't slide it off the wood and still destroy the floor). We then reinforced all the joints and possible openings with steel wire.

One day this week, Charles was at my place while I was at work, and he put Grace in her new downstairs/reinforced crate when he left, about 3 hours before I would come home from work. We were excited to see how the crate would stand up since we had spent so much time preparing against Grace's destruction. I got home to find Grace in her crate, and the crate beautifully intact. Unfortunately, the second thing I realized is we'd left the crate too close to the window drapes. Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

(In case you can't tell from the photograph, she has pulled the drapes down so hard that the force completely bent the bracket holding up the rod. The end of the drapes is actually in the crate and quite chewed up and shredded. She shreds anything that goes in the crate with her. I'm beginning to think about throwing in my bank and credit card statements for safety.)