Today the tile guys were at my house. The last time I left Buddy in his crate when the carpenter was here, I found out Buddy was distressed and kept whining and digging to try to get out.
He doesn’t know these guys, after all, and what are they doing in the house and mom isn’t here to reassure me this is okay. Is this okay?
I was prepared to leave him again today while I went to my physical therapy appointment, but then Andy called and needed me to bring him the workout bag that he had left behind, and I realized I was going to have to get some food while out – no kitchen access, and I was going to be gone a long time unless I came back home first. And those of you who live in Princeton realize that is not a trivial journey.
The sky was just starting to cloud over and the sun and shadows to merge while I was trying to figure out what to do. So I checked Holden’s weather forecast and it said overcast for the rest of the day until rain was to begin in the evening. So I took a chance and took Buddy with me, along with Andy’s workout bag, and off we went.
I got to Holden and it was sunny. So I searched for a shady spot to park the car. Changed my mind a couple of times. One spot didn’t seem shady enough, was the car going to get too hot? I can’t leave the windows wide open, he’s still a puppy and although he’s starting to bark at people, someone might take him. I hate that I have to think this way in the world. I remember when dogs were left tethered outside of stores and everything was fine. It was a more honest time, back then, at least among the general citizenry.
So, I walked into the physical therapy place, my therapist was still working with another client, so I told her I’d be right back and went to fill Buddy’s portable water bowl, to be extra safe. Did that, and when I came back in, both she and the other therapist working on me said, “there she is!” I explained the situation, and they and the lady in the office all said, “bring him in here!” “Are you sure?” They were very sure. “We’re a dog-friendly place,” they said, and told me sometimes their own dogs came.
So I brought Buddy in. And there were lots of ooooooos and aaaaaaaaahs (typical, Buddy, you dashing doggo). The office lady (I’m going to call her Lisa for this story) took his leash, and I went off with Nicole for my session. Buddy couldn’t see me (nor I, him), but he could hear me. And there was some whining involved, but it wasn’t too bad, and when I came to retrieve him, Lisa said he knew exactly where I was in the room all the time and he was just laying there nicely at her feet and occasionally whining. She also said, “and he came on a day I have my lint roller!” “He shed?” I replied. (He doesn’t really shed much.) “Just a bit, he was nervous.” She wasn’t upset.
So, the title of this post relates to what happened next. I walked outside with Buddy and right next to us was a car with two German Shepherd-looking dogs (they were black and tan, almost looked like a mix of shepherd and Doberman) started barking their guard-dog barks. Buddy replied back to them with his guard-dog bark. Then some dogs from across the parking lot joined in the chorus.
I eventually got Buddy to jump into the car (he didn’t want to, he wanted to respond to those dogs), started getting into mine, and the lady with the shepherd mixes got out of hers and said, “lots of dogs wanting to play.”
“Wanting to play?” I thought in my head. More like a group “stay away from me and mine” barkathon. This was not play-with-me energy.
Nope.