Our neighbors went away for a week recently and needed someone to watch Milo.

Milo is one of those small, longhaired dogs that you usually see sticking out of heiresses' purses. They're tiny, yippy and frenetic. Real dogs actually wince when they see these little furballs because they're embarrassed to be associated with them. Technically, they might not even really be dogs, as they seem to be composed of least 50 percent dryer lint.

When our neighbors left, they offered to pay our 13-year-old twin daughters to take care of Milo. That meant going over to the neighbor's house four times a day, letting Milo out and feeding him. They'd have to stop by at 7 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., and then again at 11 p.m.

At first, I was a little skeptical, given that we have a dog of our own, a scruffy, old, smelly and stone-deaf West Highland terrier named Harry. In the past five years, I have never seen the girls let Harry out, let him in or even feed him. Every once in a while, they squeal and ask why Harry has to chew himself like that in front of the family, but for all intents and purposes, he is invisible to them.

To be fair, Harry isn't much fun. He doesn't play games, fetch or even move if he doesn't absolutely have to. He's now so old that every morning, I stand over his body, all splayed out in his dog bed, and wait to see if his chest is actually moving before I go get the paper. When he walks, he shuffles like a tiny tired canine zombie. The children often complain that a live dog would be much more fun than a dead one.

With this job, though, our girls had their work cut out for them. Milo has an annoying tendency to pee all over the floor whenever he gets excited. Which is just about every time someone comes in the door. So our neighbors put up baby gates before they left, believing they could confine Milo to the kitchen, where he could do less damage.

Milo may not be a guard dog, or even a real dog, but he turned out to be a genius at jumping over gates. Just hours after the neighbors left, the girls let themselves in to find Milo standing in the front hall, outside of the gate. Peeing.

They fed him, walked him and put him back in the kitchen. Then they stepped outside, ran to the windows and watched as this tiny hairball vaulted over the gate, landed in the living room, and, just to add a little variety to his act, pooped. At this rate, the neighbors would come back from vacation and have to recarpet the entire house.

In a panic, one twin stayed in the house to guard Milo while the other ran home to drag my wife and me over to solve the problem. After shutting Milo in the kitchen twice and watching him jump over twice, I went home and cut some boards to wedge at the bottom of the kitchen doors, so the gates could be higher. We reset the gates, I glared threateningly and pointed at Milo, and we shut the door.

We didn't even get to the window before he was over the new, higher, gate. I caught a glimpse of him flying through the air like a furry missile.

Next we tried placing chairs in front of the gate. They only served as stepping stones for the airborne pooch. I suggested spreading olive oil all over the floor so Milo couldn't get traction, but nobody supported the idea. We tried even higher chairs. Milo just laughed derisively, as if to say, "Come on! At least make it a challenge!"

Finally, an hour later, we'd piled enough furniture, including a dining room table, in front of the doors so that even a Great Dane might have some difficulty getting out. The girls looked exhausted. It was going to be a long week.

As we trudged into our house, we found Harry in the front hall, on his side, looking like he was just waiting for the crime scene investigator to come draw a chalk line around his corpse. I leaned down. Harry didn't move a muscle, but his chest moved. A little.

"What a good, good dog!" I said.