Zoe the Escape Artist

Zoe has been an escape artist.

At our previous house, the living room had a glass door which opened onto a deck, which was adjacent to the stairs down to the parking lot. On occasion, we would leave the glass door open; and once in a while, Zoe would get onto a chair, then on to the balcony rail, then around the deck to the stairs, hop down and go exploring. Neighbors would knock on our door and say "Is that Zoe? She's down in the marsh." Usually with thick gooey mud coating her legs and fluffy feet. Zoe never ever pulled this "climb up and tightrope walk along the balcony" trick while we were watching--as far as we could tell, she just beamed herself to the marsh--so it took quite a while for us to figure out how she was doing it.

Then we moved to the new house, and the glass doors open onto the back deck. In 2009 we had the November Nor'Easter, which included the highest flood level I've ever seen since moving to Hampton Roads in 1986. As you might expect, this included quite a bit of wind and rain. Zoe gets antsy when it's windy, and wants to go out into the weather. Which she did. Despite the door being closed. She somehow managed to flip the latch to unlock the door, got the wooden door handle between her teeth,  and pulled it open. This did quite a bit of damage to the door handle, and the splinters tore up her mouth; there was a splattering of blood under the door handle. But she was determined to get out, and she did. When I replaced the door handle, I put bitter apple on it, which is supposed to guarantee that dogs will leave it alone. She had it open within an hour. Next time, I put Chinese fire oil on the handle. That didn't slow her down at all.  Fortunately she was going out onto the back deck, and there's no way to get out from there without jumping down eight feet or more, which she's too smart to do. So I gave up, and she opened the door whenever she wanted.