So Zoe, she’s been boundary trained by me from the beginning. She’s learned pretty well where our yard ends all the way around.

So last night I open the door to let Zoe go pee like I do every night, and she bolts straight towards the road, hackling and barking. I think the first thing out of my mouth was actually, “What the hell?” It was dark out, it took me a few seconds to see the neighbor walking her dog down the road in front of our house. (Which I think is pretty stupid - I couldn’t see her, I doubt a car would either. Anyways.) So Zoe goes bolting right for them. There was no car in sight, thank god. I yell her name.

And that little girl goes flying out to the edge of our front yard and SKIDDED to a halt where our front yard ends, where that “boundary” is (about 5-10 feet in from the actual road), and hopped sideways along that boundary, barking like all get-out. I was saying, I think, “What are you DOING? Get back here! Go potty!” She ran towards me, I told her to potty, she ran back out to the road boundary and barked and barked again. Then she turned around, trotted back towards me, peed, and came inside.

The neighbors must think we have an electric fence or something. She was seriously only 10 or 15 feet away from the neighbor and their dog. But she stayed right there to bark. Of course, this is a dog who, if you look at her crosswise, will run and hide. So I’m not really sure what she was thinking in the first place.

But it’s really nice to know that, even in tough, unforseen situations like that, her training holds up.