Friday, March 4, 2016

Doggy Road Trip

We don't take Millie out in the car that much ever since she peed on me and also vomited on me that one time. I guess when you are so tiny that you can't see out the car window unless someone is holding you on their lap it's easy to get a little queasy inside a car. I know I can't read in a car unless I want to become quite ill. But, she has been for short little car rides yesterday and today and we will try to acclimate her a bit more with more frequent little rides.

I don't always have a car available to take her for a ride, if Keith leaves for work at some weird time or goes late in the afternoon where I know his return trip will be in the middle of the night he takes the car to work. This week he has actually gotten two morning calls so I've taken him to work so that I could have the car in case I want to go somewhere. Yesterday he was getting back to the railyard in the early afternoon so I packed Millie up in the car to surprise him.

I put her bed in the front passenger seat where she stood absolutely frozen for about half of the 15 minute ride. I kept patting her head to reassure her that everything was okay and she finally settled down and laid in her bed. Then we got to the railyard and she was so excited to get out and go for a walk that she paid absolutely no attention to Keith, a person that she is usually thrilled to see. He took her around the parking lot and over by the railroad tracks where fortunately there were no big noisy trains going by, and she had a great time sniffing everything, even car tires. She sat on his lap on the way home with the window down and thought that was pretty much fun, too.

Keith got called for an early train again today, so later in the morning I put Millie back in the car and we went to a park a little ways down the road. She stood frozen in her bed again but when we got to the park it was like a doggy wonderland. There were only a few people there so we had the grassy area to ourselves, a big grassy area where they play soccer on the weekends. She sniffed at every single big pine tree, must have been some good smells. She was kind of like a bloodhound tracking, going in one direction then no, lets go this way. It was a nice little outing with lots of shade from the big trees. We stopped once for her to sit and have some water and then finished walking around the park. She didn't really want to get back in the car but was ready for a rest when we got home.

1 comment:

cailin and ghillie's mum said...

Elbee used to like riding in the car when he was young and Sheri took him everywhere with her. But, as he got older, he started getting more anxious about being in the car. We didn't mind the barking at passing cars, pedestrians and bike riders, but he can't seem to settle on Sheri's lap on a big cushion so he can see out the window and he gets a bit drooly, which can be a sign of nausea. So, pretty much the only time he goes in the car is to the vet's, which is probably not helping his anxiety about being in the car!