When Dogs (Try to) Fly

Yesterday, around 3:30pm, I get a call from a number I don't recognize. I let it go to voicemail. Half a minute later, I listen to the message.

Hi Sam, this is Jennifer Lastname-- actually, you don't know me. I'm your neighbor. Your dog-- your black dog fell out of the window. He seems okay, we're just hanging out in my garage.

The rest was just details as to which condo she was in. Anyway, I'm flipping out on the inside because I deduced that he had fallen from the second story window. I called her back, her tone was that there was nothing major wrong with him so I was a little more at ease.

The window from which Chuck jumped. Jamie was quick to fix the screen. He's a self-proclaimed screening pro, now.

I left work and headed home, grabbed his leash, then walked out through the garage to head to pick him up. (Her garage is opposite mine and one-over.) When she answers, I see Chuck gently pushing the door to her garage open to come see me. He runs out to me and is all "Hey, what's up Mom!". Seriously, dog? She showed me that the only thing she found on him was a cut on his knee.

She explained to me that she was out back talking to another neighbor when they heard him fall. She didn't specify, but because I know him, I assume that Chuck just got up and ran straight to them to find out if they saw that cool stunt he just did.

Chuck loves looking out windows, especially when they're open and he can smell everything. The downstairs windows we always make sure to keep closed when we're not around because we wouldn't put it past him to bust through the screen to run after a bunny. Chuck loves hanging out on the bed in the guest room because we leave those windows open when it's nice. The headboard of the guest bed is pushed up to those two windows up there. It's the metal kind with bars, so we always assumed it was safe to leave the windows open. (We also assumed our dog was smart enough to NOT jump out of a second story window.)

It had to have been a stunt. See, the bars on the guest bed are fairly narrow. He would have had to really work to squeeze through them. Also, the screen was completely busted through, not just pushed out of the window as a whole. He had to have been working on that screen as well. I just don't get it.

Coned and back behind bars. (The garage in the background is where he hung out til I picked him up.)

When I got Chuck home, I called the vet.

So, funny story: my dog just jumped out of a second-story window. Can I bring him in to get checked out?

"OH MY GOD, is he okay!?"

The vet gave him a manual body check and assessed the gash on his knee. He said everything seemed fine, but it'd be best to take some x-rays just to confirm and also to make sure he didn't have any internal damage. I agreed to the x-rays and the staple for his cut. Afterward, the vet showed me the x-rays.

"He must be made of steel." he said. 

He had absolutely no broken bones and no sign of organ damage. (We did, however, find out that he has arthritis in his knee.)

Apparently, he was a champ about getting his staples.

$342 later, we still have our crazy dog, which is nothing when I consider that we could have been spending thousands on surgeries, or even worse, he could have died. Thank you, Chuck, for being so resilient, but can you maybe, I don't know, NOT jump out of windows?