The first dog I ever owned was Taz, a shorthaired, dingo-like medium male mutt with a handsome face and intelligent eyes. I had been married ten years, and had an eight-year-old daughter. We bought our first house in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles , a ranch-style 3 bedroom with a big yard. At our housewarming party, as is customary in friendly circles, someone gave us a six month old pup saved from the pound. Taz

Taz had no obvious bad habits. No biting, peeing or pooping in the house. He chewed a couple sofas, that was it. However, Taz always was a bit leery of our family. My wife Cindi is outgoing, always on-the-run show biz exec, never much of a pet person. A dog was just another item any decent house must have, much like a nice china buffet or a wide-screen TV. It's not that she was mean to him, they just didn't connect. I think dog food grossed my wife out, so I was the one who fed him. You can imagine who picked up poop.

I loved to scratch Taz's ears and he was affectionate towards me. But, if such a thing was possible, Taz seemed a bit bored by my company. Like he was really way too smart and he had to suffer this fool because I was human and had a house and fed him and walked him. I just thought I was incredibly insecure, imagining things about my dog that could not be true.

My 8-year old daughter Chloe was into her own world of reading and imagination. She loved Taz a lot, but her promise to walk the dog every day soon got old as Taz would pull on the leash so hard that she would either have to let go or get dragged along the ground.

So the chore of feeding, walking and training Taz fell to me. I guess I made every mistake in the book. On my daily walks with Taz he pulled the leash. I let him pull, in fact, I would take him to one of my favorite hiking trails nearby -- one that was mostly uphill for the first mile, and let Taz drag me like a one-dog mush team to the top. I was lazy, Taz was exhausted, but triumphant. He was the leader of the pack and I was the alpha dog. Beta really. I think this was the problem. I never established myself as the leader of the pack. I was just this competing male Taz wanted to get away from.

What I should have done first of all was train him to sit quietly and patiently in the house while I attached the leash. If he pulled, I should have just sat down and waited until he calmed down and stopped. Then, instead of heading toward the door, I should have walked him with a loose leash around the house. Finally, we should have practiced sitting at the door, leash loose, until I gave the command to walk out. But I was too ignorant and busy to train him properly, I take all the blame!

Luckily, Taz came to us already house trained, so this was never the problem. In fact he loved the yard a lot, exploring every corner. I was relieved at first, proud that I had a yard large enough for him to explore and stretch his legs. In fact, everything was hunky-dory until one day I spotted Taz through the living room window sprinting away down the street. A whole year of prison-breaks had begun.

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