You need to make sure that harness works really well. Mikey escaped again yesterday. I went in the house to get him crackers, and that quickly he jumped the fence. I went out, he was gone, I looked down the street and didn't see him, grabbed David and got in the car while calling the police. The police found him about 5 minutes later - ON THE XXX FREEWAY. He is safe, but I'm a wreck.
Mikey had gone 1.4 miles, crossed a 6-lane street and an 8-lane street near a major amusement park. He was spotted crossing the 8-lane by someone who called 911 because he was barefoot. It was only because the woman noticed him that he was found - likely right before he would have started walking on (or across???!!!) the freeway.
Needless to say, we spent most of the day looking for resources for elopement behavior (that's what this is called, and it applied to Alzheimer's, autism and any other condition in which people run or wander off). There is very little out there to deal with the behavior although there are studies. A lot of them reference using GPS tracking to recover individuals who have wandered. There are also service dogs. I saw at least one group using electric shock therapy.
Also, as is typical, these kinds of things are cheaper for pets than for people. We are still looking for our best solution. In the meantime, every second of every day, Mikey is either a prisoner in his (or our, or Nana's) house, or is monitored by an adult.
Oh, and a side note: Our regional center has *denied* GPS tracking support because, "it won't stop the elopement behavior" but they have not offered anything to change the behavior! They won't consider placement because he's getting services, which include minimum-wage funding for people to help monitor him, and no help to find such a resource. (and don't get me started ...)
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