A toddler, a storm door and a dog... Uh oh

When Mulligan came to live with us he was immediately a runner. Life on his own roaming free was still in his blood. Sure, he loved the warm bed and easy food in his bowl, but boy did he love to run. We spent countless hours chasing that dog, driving around looking for him, trying different collars and harnesses to contain him, even installing an electric fence. We replaced most of the downstairs screens at least once after he jumped out the windows. Okay, and the upstairs window, but fortunately he thought twice about jumping once he got that screen opened. Reading the book Marley and Me led to countless times when I would read a passage to Mike saying, "Who does this sound like?"

Fast forward to now. Mulligan is settling down and is less likely to escape. He has grown to like the easy life he leads of lounging around. We enjoyed close to a year without chasing a loose dog.

Then I was getting the stroller ready for a walk with Kyle and Erin. Kyle was at the storm door, which normally has a hook latched to keep Kyle inside. Since I was outside, the hook was not done and Kyle kept opening the door. I asked him to stay inside. I asked him to keep the door closed or Mulligan would get out. Yep, I should have known better.

In the old days Mulligan would have been out like a shot, this time he just sort of swaggered past me just out of my reach. I tried to calmly walk behind him, thinking I could grab him, but as soon as he knew I was following he picked up the pace and took off.

So, I loaded Kyle and Erin in their car seats and off we went. The cute part of the whole story is Kyle in the car. Nonstop he asked, "Mommy, puppy? Uh oh, puppy? Puppy walk? Mommy, Ba Boof? Ba Boof walk?" Then he would lean up to the window to call for Mulligan, "PUPPY! BA BOOF!" Then he'd start the questions again.

We were only gone a few minutes and were swinging past our house again and there was our neighbor holding him on the porch. Seems another neighbor was driving by and spotted Mulligan. She had Cheetos. Ahhh, the power of Cheetos. Gets a dog every time.