Welcome back. Hope you enjoyed Episode 1. If you haven’t read it yet. You might want to start there. Then return here.

In the morning, the cage was empty. Surprise, surprise! Of course. What self-respecting dog would go into a cage with a spring-loaded door just to get some dog food. LeeRoy was too smart for that. Instead, he lay not ten feet from the door. Every once in a while he would walk the circumference, dragging his 8 foot brown leather leash beneath him, sniffing his blanket or the food through the wire mesh. No way would he go under the door that hung over the opening.

He did this every day. And every day the women came and tried to coral LeeRoy. They chased him through woods and fields, calling for him. But they never could get close. He was always way out in front, leash flapping in the wind beside him. All the neighbors had seen the elusive dog dragging his leash. The police had been called. They couldn’t catch him. No one could. And every day after all the possies had tried to capture him, he would wander back into our garden and plant himself for the night.

Several days of this. Cold nights with frost. LeeRoy’s ribs began to show so I offered him hotdogs. He loved them as long as I didn’t come with them. So I had to throw them at least twenty yards from me in order for him to come. Of course, I tried to lure him into his cage with a trail of hotdogs. He ate the trail right up to below the trap door. Then he laid down. He would not go in and get the couple of hot dogs I had placed in his bowl in the trap. Then I fed him hamburgers. He loved those too. Marcy didn’t though. “Are you feeding that dog our hamburgers? Do you know how much that costs?” I didn’t. So I went to BJ’s and bought 50 pounds of Dog food. And $15 worth of treats. After a few days, his ribs stopped showing.

Then I tried a new strategy.

How will LeeRoy react? GO TO Episode 3.