September 16, 2008
REMEMBERING HAPPY HOUCK [THE ESCAPE OF SOFIA]
As a kid, we had a beagle named Happy. For most of his 17 years, he spent much of his non-sleeping hour thinking of ways to escape our evil clutches. As you can see from the photo above, he held us in great contempt and only barely disguised his disgust at having the remain in our possession. After he shed his puppy years, his name became a cruel bit of alliterative irony.
How much did he hate us? If we cracked open the front door to answer it, he'd nudge it open and run like Usain Bolt. We had a chain-link fence that had a gate with a latch that he learned to nudge open with his snout. One time he tunneled under the fence P.O.W.-style and took off. I lost count the number of times I spent summer evenings searching for him in the neighborhood with a flashlight. The dog had serious Papillion-like skills.
But as good as his escapes were, never did I imagine that he could accomplish something like this:
My favorite moment in the video comes at 1:13, when the dog pauses, looks up and his eyes say, "Shit, there's a camera."