No bath for Ellie yesterday as we took her up to Oldham with us. The good thing about going to Oldham is travelling through Saddleworth Moors and Holmefirth. (The latter is where "Last of the Summer Wine" was filmed.) They are both absolutely gorgeous areas, and I've promised myself a trip to both with the best camera that I can lay my hands on. They also make for amazing dog walks as it's hills for as far as the eye can see. And right proper hills too! But alas, on this trip, it was straight through to Oldham to see Jan's parents.
Dog travel tip #1: Do not expect your puppy to travel in the car for 113 miles, on a full stomach, without decorating your car in a delicate shade of vomit. Bless her. She did really well for the vast majority of the trip, and then I turned around to find her trying not to lay in two large piles of vomit she'd unleashed onto the blanket.
I pulled her through to sit on my lap for the rest (remaining ten minutes) of the journey. I'm glad we didn't bath her before we left, as she had vomit all over her paws and tail. Yum.
Upon arrival, we cleaned up the car, washed the blanket, and no harm done. We then fed her again immediately as we were going to be staying a few hours and figured she'd be hungry after losing all her food from earlier.
As this was Ellie's first trip to someone else's house, I was expecting a bit of chaos to be honest. Hey, she's a puppy, and it's all new stuff to investigate, and Jan's Brother, who Ellie has never met.
You know what? She was absolutely as good as gold! She peed on the carpet but only because someone had closed the back door and she couldn't get out. Other than that, she made me exceptionally proud. Exceptionally so. She tried jumping up Jan's Mum a couple of times, but she knows our rules -- push her down, no eye contact, no speaking to her, and don't give her attention until she's calm. She soon got the idea.
For most of the time, she slept at my feet, as I had been drafted in to fix Jan's Dad's laptop. She even managed to not get over-excited at Jan's Brother and if anyone can wind a dog up, he can!
We left in the evening, and loaded her into the back seat again. Only this time she hadn't eaten so close to travelling. I'm pleased to report that she didn't vomit on the way back.
Tomorrow is her second social walk with the training instructor's dog, and then her third training class on Wednesday night. I extended her town walk a little further this morning too. I like to extend it each Monday so that she has a week to acclimatise to the increased pressure. This week sees a lot more crossing of main roads -- for which she has to sit at the curb before crossing. She pretty much has that sussed now. I'd say that out of ten attempts, she might fail two, where she just gets selective deafness and doesn't sit. We've been practising it though, as when I walk her to the park, I'll keep crossing the roads at random. I love to keep her on her toes. :)
1 comment:
Ah poor baby still being travel sick - like you i chose not to feed her a few hours before her journey but alas it didn't seem to make much difference. Think it may be trial and error and if she still suffers then getting advice as to what you can give her to help her - hey the first time you saw her she was covered in vomit remember?? (following a journey up to yours)
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