Stubborn

After I graduated from college, I moved down to the Los Angeles area for my new job, renting a room from a coworker in Rancho Cucamonga. Jason, my coworker, had just bought his house new, and was in the process of landscaping his back yard when I moved in. He was worried that Levi would eat his new landscaping, so he asked me to get some kind of a protective barrier to keep Levi out of the plants. I went out and bought one of those wireless pet systems from Petsmart.


I went to install the system that next weekend, only to find out that the ground in the backyard was hard-pack with lots of rocks. It may as well have been concrete. I only got about a foot of trench two or three inches deep after a half hour of work on it. I decided to buy a soaker hose and soak the ground for the week and dig the trench the next weekend. 
The hose helped, but it still took me all day with Levi watching me work from the shade of the patio to dig the trench around the perimeter of the yard. I got the wiring routed, buried it,hooked everything up, and marked the trench with the little white training flags. I hooked everything up, put the collar on Levi, and let him loose. One quick "test" of the boundary and Levi came running back to me with his tail between his legs. 
I hooked his leash up to him and took him around to hear the warning beeps near all the white flags. I let him off leash, and he walked up to test the boundary again, and he seemed to get the idea, as after walking the perimeter, he came over and laid down under the table in a huff. I went in the house, satisfied that I had solved the problem of my landlord's planters. 
An hour or two later, I walked outside to check up on Levi. I found him mysteriously laying down over on the planters outside the boundary of the perimeter fence. A little confused, I reset the system and put Levi back inside the contained zone. I went up and watched from upstairs to see how the little guy was doing it. About ten minutes of nothing went by, and suddenly Levi got up and walked to the boundary.As he got close, he froze for a second, seemed to steel himself, and leaped across the boundary. Once on the other side, he just stood there flinching to the shocking pattern of the collar...for TWO MINUTES...until the safety shut-off kicked in. What a brute. I put in the bigger battery on his collar, set the radius around the wire to the largest possible, and watched again. This time, the perimeter seemed to do the trick. The whole rest of the weekend, Levi seemed content to not cross the boundary. 
I went to work the following Monday secure in the knowledge that I wouldn't have to buy any more replacement plants for my landlord. Little did I know that I had a surprise waiting for me at home. I pulled into the driveway, walked in the front door, and walked towards the backyard. As I approached the windows, I slowed down. There seemed to be some white debris all over the back yard. I walked out the door, scanning the yard for Levi, and took inventory of the scene before me. Levi was laying in the planter...again. He had entered the shock zone, dug up the wire, and bit it. He then proceeded to go around and chew up every single white marker flag, punishing the system for shocking him. As I stood there staring at the devastation my dog left in his wake, I had one thought: My dog is a genius...evil, but a genius.