Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 30/00) - The devil makes work for idle paws. That and the kind of desperation only loneliness can breed recently drove a city dog to new heights.

Until he saw proof positive, David Scott did not believe his small husky, Chance, could climb a six-foot chain link fence.

The escapes began shortly after Chance's dog pal, Alex, passed away last year.

"I was blaming the neighbourhood kids," said Scott of the dozen or so times he came home to find Chance waiting for him on the front deck instead of in the back yard.

"They would come over and talk with him and you'd find them inside the kennel every now and then," Scott said. "I thought for sure they were letting him out and closing the gate behind him.

"I had to go over and apologize for it afterwards."

The apology came after Scott set up a video camera in his backyard and saw exactly what happened while he was away at work.

"After an hour and a half of being alone, that was enough for him," said Scott. He jumped, scaled up and hopped to freedom.

"I laughed for a week. It was the funniest thing. He'd jump until his front paws got up to the top and then he'd kick with his back legs until he was perched on all four paws on top of the chain link and then jump down."

Since then, Scott has raised the bar beyond Chance's reach by stretching a roll of chicken wire around the top of the fence. Chance hasn't escaped since.

And soon his reasons for fleeing will be gone. Scott has adopted a new dog, a curious-looking German shepherd-basset hound cross called Kane.

Chance isn't the only climbing dog in town.

Amy Maund used to put her adopted husky cross, Balu, in a horse pen in front of the Great Slave Animal Hospital while she was at work there.

The six-foot high fence may be good enough to contain horses, but it was no match for Balu. "He just likes to come in and be around the people," said Maund.

Balu suffered a broken back leg when he was hit by a car March 9. Amy figured that was the end of his fence-jumping days, but he made the leap again two weeks ago.

Janet Pacey's American pit bull terrier, Winnie, doesn't hop fences. She climbs trees, on command. (Winnie, that is, not Janet.)