Strange happenings at Chez Fork

Odd things have been occurring over the past couple of days.  My usual morning routine is to get out of bed, take the furbabies downstairs then come back up to start making breakfast.  When the furbabies bark at the jogger who runs past, I go downstairs, yell at them, take them back upstairs to eat and all is right with the world.  Except last Friday when the furbabies barked, I went down to get them and instead of being inside barking at the jogger, they were outside loping along after him!

Turns out, somehow, the side gate had gotten open and they had taken the opportunity to escape.  I ran inside to get slightly more decent than just my nighty, let Mr Fork know, and took off after them.  10 minutes later, I returned home to get my mobile and the car and continue looking.  We found them, 3 blocks away, after we saw a car swerve to avoid hitting them.  The fluff balls were ok, and were chastised, punished then cuddled in that order.  How the side gate got open, we don't know.  To open it, someone would have needed to come through our front yard and then through the gate.  Needless to say, we didn't see or hear a thing.

A few days later, I was out on the deck for some reason and noticed something spilt on the floorboards.  Mr Fork and I cleaned it up... and this mysterious liquid also seemed to eat away the paint underneath.  Neither of us remember dropping anything there, and it goes without saying that we don't use anything in the house that would be so dangerous, especially with all the pets we have!  Mr Fork suggested that it might have been some sort of animal marking it's territory overnight, but I ask you, what sort of animal has spray that dangerous and corrosive ?!

I don't know what's going on, but we've padlocked all the gates and we're keeping a close eye on things out at the ol' homestead.