Smallz in the City

Hello World! I have decided to join the blogging world with our own personal blogspot to record the daily happenings of our growing family. I figure with a baby on the way, I've got to start doing mom things, right? So here goes...
Many of you have met or at least heard stories of our infamous dogs, Smallz and Maximus. We got Smallz first, bought and paid for a full-bred beagle... What were we thinking? Maximus was an unexpected addition as our friends found him as a tiny puppy, alone on the side of the road, and we (as if Tommy had a say....) decided to keep him. Smallz has had many escapades and adventures in his 4 short years and I am pretty sure he's got a few guardian angels that stay busy keeping him out of danger. Some of you may remember his travels in Abilene, to include a visit to the county hospital (running loose in the hallways), a grocery store, a trip to Anson, and a very focused study of a yellow plastic road marker in the middle of Ambler with cars dodging every which way to avoid him. Things have been fairly quiet for Smallz the last couple of years and he has become a bit overweight and complacent over time. But no more! Smallz apparently made a new year's resolution to have some more adventures and was able to successfully escape our yard at least 10 times in a 2 week period. He has met several of the neighbors and even found some other dogs to join in one of the adventures with him. He also got to spend several afternoons at the grandparents' house (Tommy's parents had to rescue him for us multiple times) and an afternoon showing our friend Landon the weaknesses in his yard.
Where is Max in all of this, you ask? Chilling at home in the backyard. He has apparently figured out that when Smallz gets out, he waits for no one, and thus had been left behind in a strange place one time too many. Max is the ever obedient man's best friend. I am certain that Smallz has called him a goody-2-shoes at least once.
We have spent a lot of time the past few weeks trying to patch up Smallz's escape routes, each time thinking we had it fixed, and each time coming home to a yard with only one dog. Smallz has some serious Navy Seal ops going back there, even digging under barbed wire without scratching himself. His most recent escapes have been very houdini, with no obvious signs of where he could possibly have gotten out. We hate that we are having to put both dogs in kennels for 9 hours a day, so we broke down and bought an electric fence. We went for the wireless one for the convenience of easy set up, but it was not cheap. Smallz has a collar that beeps and then provides a static "correction" anytime he gets too close to the boundaries. The boundaries are a bit odd as you have to set it up in a radius with the indoor receiver in the center of the circle, but we have managed to block his access only to the back few feet and the fenceline of one side of the yard where he has tended to escape most frequently. We started the training today and Smallz definitely did not like the "correction" he received. Now he's a bit nervous to even leave the deck but we are trying to show him where he can safely go. I know it sounds cruel but it is much better than getting hit by a car. Hopefully, this will work, but I am still nervous that he will be so stubborn that he just pushes through to get out, or he may figure out a way to get that collar off. We will keep you updated. I have been trying to tell Smallz that he has given me quite enough material to write a series of children's books about his escapades and we do not need any more chapters, but he tends to have selective hearing. I guess he is just preparing us for kids.