Friday, January 27, 2017

Trial Run



     My morning was spent running errands, to include a trip to the pet food place to replenish our dog food and treat supply.
I not only found the fancy brand we were buying before, but a second one that Mamie likes. Add the treats, a small kong, and a toy, and I came away with a much lighter pocketbook. No guilt trip at aaalll here for what we’d planned for her later in the day.

          At noon we packed up dog, beach towel she’d slept on, a t-shirt I’d slept in, and drove to the kennel for our grand experiment. To the best of my knowledge, Mamie had never stayed in one and the day’s plan was to leave her there for a couple of hours to see how things would go.

          Instead of the quick get-away I’d hoped for, there was a delay while they called our vet back in Maassachusetts to verify her shots. (I must have been as rattled as a mom on the first day of school because I’d left all her paperwork back at the condo.) Mamie spent her time in the lobby sniffing and alternatively pulling to the door and licking my leg and staring up with big wet brown eyes to show how cute she was and why I shouldn’t leave her there. Or that’s what I interpreted.

          Finally I handed over the leash to the perfectly nice young lady there and walked resolutely out the door. At least, being a dog, she wasn’t able to cry out, “Mom! Don’t leave meeee!!”


          We went for lunch at a local landmark, a restaurant buried deep in the Florida pines on the Myakka river – down the kind of road where you expect to hear banjoes playing.


 Except we did. Turns out it was the Banjo Thursday and the picnic tables were full, people were pulling lawn chairs out of their trunks, and the parking attendants were waving us to any available shoulder on the road. 


The place was awash in white hair and flip flops. We retreated to inside the restaurant, which wasn’t a whole lot fancier than the outdoors. When I asked for water in addition to the beer I’d ordered, the waitress said, “It’ll have to be bottled – I can’t offer you any safe tap water.” I opted for just the beer.


Still, that beer was cold and our pulled pork was heaven even if our arms did stick to the table. Our success continued when we picked up Mamie and she was in one piece. The nice young lady said she didn’t cry or whimper and even figured out how to exit her individual dog door to the outside run. 

Once home, she crashed on the couch and slept as though she’d been abandoned for days.






9 comments:

  1. My friend Ann runs a kennel. She and her employees greet the dogs before the owners. When it's time to head go to the kennel, they never look back. Mom who? So, I'm saying, if it's an excellent kennel, Mamie will be fine, and may even have stories to tell of the friends she meets through the mesh.

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  2. Funny about the actual banjos. That had to have been momentarily eerie.
    So glad your little gal survived her vet trip. Lucky you. Callie screams from the moment we walk in the door till we exit. She is not a favorite patient.
    Mamie does look a bit put out though. Good thing you have treats handy.

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  3. WONDERFUL news. Mind you, I know exactly how she feels. Strong emotion IS tiring.

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  4. You are so funny. Sweet little Mamie, she sure found herself a good home. Last Christmas we left big old Eli at the kennel for two days and we worried all the time we were gone. I thought we would never get back home. That was the longest drive.

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  5. Sorry but I'd have to stay behind with Mamie. She's precious.

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  6. I'm glad to hear that Mamie took it all in stride.

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  7. So glad to know she will be fine in the kennel. I know it's hard, but I have a friend whose dog simply jumped up and down with joy when she saw her kennel coming up. It's a very posh place and very expensive but they can be great! :-)

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  8. Banjos. Oh my. Glad to hear your little experiment worked out and your Mamie survived quite nicely. -Jenn

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