still out of control

Today was the day Toni was supposed to have left for the neighbor island.

I took Kimo on his walk and as I was coming back I was surprised to see Koa loose. The metal clasp had come off of the rope. I took Kimo home and went to get the screwdrive I use for weeding. I tried to get the clasp off the other rope, but it looks like the rope was burnt to weld it shut. Actually it's pretty much off the the burnt part expanded making it hard to take out of the metal loop. So I just tied the other rope.

I went to walk and feed Koa in the afternoon. Since apparently nobody was home, I took Koa in the back to feed him and looked around to see if I could block any obvious openings. I used a couple of pieces of lumber and slid it under the metal gate that I've seen Koa slide under to get back home. I also took the sheet of wood on the side of the steps and tried to block the path under the stairwell. On the other side of the stairwell (on the side facing the street), there looked like there were a couple of openings. So I tried to block them with a 2x4(?) and a piece of raingutter I found nearby. But there still looks like there's some space to squeeze.

While there, I took off Koa's leash, then it took me a while to find it. I could also hear Kimo barking. So I left and it turned out that Pat had taken Keith out. So that wasn't much of a surprise. I went home and tugged Kimo up the street (after cleaning up his pee and poop in the garage).

Koa was by the gate when we came up and I let Kimo in. The dogs more or less kept their distance as Kimo went sniffing around. It was OK for a while, but then Koa started howling on the landing on top of the stairway. He was howling at the neighbor Koa. There's an opening where they can see each other. Then Kimo comes over and starts barking/growling. And that made it worse when they were both acting up. The neighbors yelled at their Koa to get away from there. And finally the dogs settled down.

Then Kimo wandered near the back fence overlooking the park and he saw something he didn't like and started barking/growling. That set Koa to howling. And I had to carefully stay between them in case an attack broke out. After a number of heys, they calmed down and I tied Koa in the front and took Kimo home in the back.

Kimo was lying down, but then heard a truck or something. I pulled him back away but he didn't calm down. In fact he got worse when the truck was leaving (it sounded like it since I couldn't see it). I was trying to snap him out of it but the leash was under his body. He got so wild and jumped up on me. I kneeled down in front of him and he nipped my arm. Luckily I was wearing my sweatshirt so it was a surface scratch. After a few firm tugs on the leash, he finally came back to his senses and I made him lie down. He seemed OK after that. But he seems to get into these states where he's out of control.

So it's still a fine line I'm walking. The safer way to handle it is to wait until he calms. But I'm always tempted to try to snap him out of it even when he's in the red zone.