www.atlantabeaglerescue.org

We were passed this video and it really does illustrate just how wiley beagles are when it comes to getting out of someplace they don't want to be. Please not that we do not condone AT ALL the kennel these dogs are contained in, and we certainly don't blame them for wanting out. The amusing thing (aside from the extremely adorable beagles) is that it looks like the owners have tried to fix all the exit spots and the dog kept getting out, so they put up a security camera to see how he was doing it.

We feel it is better to have no fencing than chain link fence. Chain link tends to lull you into a false sense of security. Trust us - we have seen an elderly, fat, gimpy little beagle climb a chain link fence like it was a set of stairs.

This is probably our favorite story about one of our favorite fosters. Bessie came to us in late February, when we were doing rescue in upstate New York. She had been found under a trailer at a trailer park and she was pretty sick with a bronchial infection and had an old leg injury that hadn't healed, and bad ear infections. Basically she was a mess. All through the next couple of months we nursed her back to health and enjoyed her tremendous personality. In the mornings we would take all the dogs into the fenced dog run area for morning bathroom and run around time before breakfast. The distance from the door to the run was not more than 20 feet. Bessie would trot along happily with the pack, deviously leading us to believe she was a timid, good little girl.

Ha! Come the first warm day of spring Miss Bessie stepped out the door, put her nose in the air, took one sniff and was off like a shot zig-zagging her way across our big yard, yapping and howling up a storm. Apparently the rabbits had been out before dawn checking on the new spring growth.

It was just a couple days later that my mother looked out the window to check on the dogs in the run and saw Miss Bessie nimbly climbing up and over the chainlink fence like a monkey.

Bessie eventually got adopted when we cast her in a local community theater production of "The Miracle Worker". She was in the play and would then sit in the lobby during intermission, working the crowd with those big, sad beagle eyes. What a character! And our first lesson in just how determined beagles can be at doing what they want to do.