A 10-year-old Great Pyrenees used some fancy mouth-and-nose-work to pull off an elaborate vanishing act last month, apparently feeling claustrophobic at his boarding facility in Stafford, Virginia. The dog, named General, has since been reunited with his family, but this escape was so intricate that it bears retelling.
Great Pyrenees are known for their wandering ways, but the caper caught headlines when surveillance video showed General using his muzzle to push through the glass door of his run at Aquia-Garrisonville Animal Hospital, where he was staying while his family was out of town. It’s unclear what General’s plan was; perhaps he was headed to find his beloved family.
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In a video of the escape, the dog in the kennel next door to General’s pops its head up and watches curiously as his neighbor pushes through a second door, then strolls nonchalantly down a hallway — almost as though he’d cased the joint ahead of time.
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“Basically, he spent a night and a half … trying to figure out how to open the door from the inside, which is how he got a little scratch on his nose,” General’s owner, Travis Campbell, explained. “It’s a trick to lift the latch from the inside, and he figured it out and pushed on the door. Pretty impressive.”
Next, the determined pooch uses his mouth to pull down a levered door handle and sees himself out.
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“He’s a little Houdini,”Campbell said. “When it comes to doors, he can get a lot of doors open.â€
Mr. Hairy Houdini ambles down a hallway, pokes his head into what appears to be a medical-records office, then the video cuts to the 10-year-old Pyrenees pushing his way through a third door and into a parking lot — where he disappears into the night like a big, furry ghost.
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The video was actually taken before dawn on the morning in question, and General was returned to the facility about seven hours later, after he was discovered napping in a nearby yard.
That little romp around the neighborhood may have quenched his thirst for adventure, but he very likely worked up a big appetite and was happy to return to the animal hospital for breakfast!
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Check out the brilliant dog in the video below.
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