The Dog I Never Had is Missing

I originally started writing a blog post called “Who Let the Dog Out?” that began like this:

I have a dog now. I’ve never owned a dog before. Actually, I don’t own a dog now; one owns me. Sort of. There’s a dog that lives next door to my mom, and the dog has decided it would like to live at our house.

I started tweeting about his escapes one day, not knowing I was about to begin chronicling our growing relationship. It began with an observation when he seemed to always be in our backyard despite me locking him in his own yard.

@kbutler333 No matter how great a wall Donald Trump builds, my mom’s neighbor’s dog will find a way to tunnel under it. ‪#Houdini

The neighbors placed various obstacles along the chain-link fence in a weird combination of attempts to keep him contained. Part of the fence has what looks to be an oven rack zip-tied so he can’t get to the fence. There are some fence stakes placed strategically and even what appears to be chicken wire zip-tied tightly. It was mystifying how he could get out – and how quickly he could get out. He was like some weird canine escape artist.

@kbutler333 Pretty sure my mom’s neighbor’s dog helped El Chapo escape. The heavy concrete block barely slowed his 3rd escape today. #Houdini

@kbutler333 At this point, the only thing stopping my mom’s neighbor’s dog is some kryptonite.

I would put him in his yard, lock the gate and by the time I walked back to the front yard, he’d come running up to me. Houdini seemed like a good name. A few times I saw him wriggle under the chain-link fence in a maneuver I didn’t think animals with backbones were capable of. Eventually, I gave up and learned to embrace the company. A couple of times, I just let him out of his yard because he seemed so unhappy there.

He’s a pretty smart, but clearly lonely, dog. His owners appear to be gone most of the day, so he spends days on my mom’s shady back porch and occasionally on the front porch nestled among the bushes. He sometimes sits and looks in the back door when we’re watching baseball on TV; I think maybe he’s an Astros fan.

Often, he zooms along our back fence and then around the house for no reason I can discern other than the joy of zooming. He’s a four-legged welcoming committee to anyone who comes over, and it’s pretty easy to think he belongs to us. This is an interesting development, because my family is not what you would call “pet-centric.” I even put a sticky note on the back door so people would know not to let him in, despite the fact that he looked right at home.

Admittedly, Houdini is kind of funny looking. He’s got a wiry black coat, a goofily curly tail and big pointy ears. He’s long in the torso with short legs that point out and has a wide chest and snout. (I found out later he’s a corgi/pit mix and that his name is Spider, but I refuse to call him that because it’s a stupid name, and as my niece pointed out, “Spider? That’s a prison name.”)

I introduced him as Houdini. I addressed him as Houdini. He responded to Houdini. We had moments together in the front yard. I learned to sidestep his prodigious poop, which for some reason, ended up not in his own damn yard. I started photographing him. I tried to video him zooming toward me with the slow-mo function. I became one of "those" people and posted photos of him on Facebook. I caught him bellying up to drink out of the birdbath and started making sure it was full and clean each day. I worried about him when it thunderstormed. Sometimes I made him go back into his yard where his food and water were. Like any serious relationship, the day he kissed me on the lips, everything changed. We bonded.

There was talk of a children’s book chronicling the adventures of a dog named Houdini. I read a book on how to write a children’s book. I researched if Houdini was a trademark. I created a Twitter account for him @TheDogHoudini. He got very involved in trying to get George Springer into the All-Star Game. He got some halfway decent analytics from those tweets.

@TheDogHoudini I spend a lot of time running around on grass, so of course I’m going to #VoteSpringer. Belly rub wouldn’t hurt either.

@TheDogHoudini I meant he would rub MY belly, just to be clear. #VoteSpringer #rubme #petme #scratchme

@TheDogHoudini I like how George Springer slides in the dirt. It reminds me of someone… #FanDog #VoteSpringer

@TheDogHoudini We both smile, run on grass, slide in the dirt & crash into fences. OMG! Am **I** George Springer?? #VoteSpringer
@TheDogHoudini OH. MY. DOG!! We both have short black hair! This is getting creepy. #Vote Springer #brotherfromadifferentmother

And then… he was gone.

Earlier this summer, I talked to the kid who lives with Houdini (which is how I learned some of his vitals). I told him that I thought it was funny that even though he escaped with the entire neighborhood at his disposal, he never went farther than our yard. The kid said, “Yeah, I know. He likes it here. I told my mom, ‘We can take him to Arkansas and leave him there and he’ll just find his way back here.’”

Wait. What? Arkansas?

That kid took my dog that doesn’t belong to me to Arkansas. I didn’t panic because it was early August, and I figured they’d be back for the beginning of the school year. The kid and my dog, Houdini not Spider. I had a whole list of funny Olympic tweets for @TheDogHoudini to post. I was just waiting to see him come zooming across the yard, delighted to see me again.

But they haven’t come back. Not the mom. Not the kid. Not Houdini. School started two weeks ago. I had a dream the other night that he was back and he was biting my hand in our playful reunion embrace. But then I woke up and realized I was lying on my hand and that’s why it hurt.

I don’t think he’s coming back. The yard is poop-free and the squirrels are back to roaming their territory free of canine interference, so I guess there’s an up side. But these non-dog-owning feelings are foreign and upsetting. Houdini wasn’t my dog. But now he’s gone, and I don’t like it.

This sudden disappearance just makes me believe in my heart that Houdini was the right name for that dog after all. 
Abracadabra.