There are times when I find our dog to be the smartest dog in the world,
and then there are times that I consider him one of the most
hair-brained pets I have ever come into contact with: meet Vaaska, our
Jailbird Dog.
This
morning at 8a.m., I woke up to get ready to go to work. Part of my
routine is to go downstairs and feed the dog before beginning the drudge
of daily hygiene, however, today, when I opened the door this time, I did so to find our dog missing from the backyard!
Now, if you’ve seen pictures or video
of the apartment we live in, then you know that the backyard is quite
small, with six foot stone walls surrounding each side. Regardless of
the fact that there seemed to be no conceivable way for the dog to
escape his confines, he was most definitely gone. After standing there
perplexed for several minutes, I finally called the Town Mouse down to
help me investigate. Unfortunately, with no clues and only the knowledge
that Vaaska is microchipped to console us, I had to start making my way
to work.
On my way to the bike locker, our
neighbor Fujita-san noticed and hailed us towards her. She opened the
conversation by asking us if we were looking for our dog. Obviously this
was a quick relief for us and we nodded enthusiastically. As it turned
out, Fujita-san had found the dog in her own yard that night, looking
quite pitiful, nervous and hungry, so she had fed him, assuming that
someone had tossed him into her yard in hopes that he would be adopted.
Only after we talked for a few minutes, we realized that he had squeezed
through a narrow, seven-inch passage between our houses.
Unfortunately, the story didn’t end
there, as Fujita-san, the night before, had forgotten that we had a
Shiba-inu and had called the local police station to have him impounded.
So.... Vaaska was at the police station. Luckily, Fujita-san offered to
take the Town Mouse to the police station, so I was able to go to work
without any further incident.
At the
police station, the Town Mouse was apparently drilled for some time as
to whether Vaaska really was our dog or not, but eventually, after she
signed several papers, they released him. The funny thing is, this isn’t
the first time our dog has attracted the police’s attention. When we
were still new at Rapyuta in Kamigyouku, and were trying to house train
the dog, we once spent about two hours walking up and down the street
waiting for him to do his business. During that time, a concerned
neighbor called the police to investigate the two strange foreign women
and their shiba. The station sent a car with five officers, and a
bicycle in the trunk, which the eldest officer used to patrol
nonchalantly beside us. The whole time he was on his walkie, speaking in
Japanese about how the unit was at Rapyuta, and they had seen us, but
didn’t know what to do. I never let on that I knew Japanese, and
eventually, they left without ever saying an actual word to us. Vaaska
just loves causing mischief!