No fence could contain her

Aaron's family dog, Cory, a tri-colored Shih Tzu, was a Houdini. No matter how high they built the backyard fence, she got out. They put rocks along the base so she couldn't dig. They extended the fence to ten feet.

One day Aaron hid behind the woodpile to catch her method. After checking that the parents were gone, she jumped up, climbed paw by paw, dangled at the top, then dropped into freedom: garbage cans, barking, a full neighborhood tour.

Well-meaning advice said she needed lots of outdoor freedom to be happy, so more and more of her life moved into a large pen. Indoors she got wound up. Outdoors she invented new exits. Energy didn't burn off. Escapes got smarter. Visiting her meant muddy paws and a dog nobody wanted to deal with. It stopped feeling like they had a dog at all.

Cory wasn't random mischief. She was solving for a life that wasn't working, and the "solution" of more fence time only fueled the next plan.