Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (14 page)

We put our house on the market in November of 2005
,
and
,
thankfully,
it
sold by December.
In New York, closing on a house t
ook
about three months, so we closed in March 2006
,
and began our journey across the country that same day.

Knowing Buddy for as long as we
ha
d, we already predicted that he was not going to be easy on this trip, so we were mindfully prepared.
We had
chosen
to put both of the pups in dog crates for the long journey.
In the event that
we ever had to stop short, we wanted to ensure that they would not go
flying through the windshield.
Buddy
was
usually content while in his crate
and
l
ay
down comfortably without complaining.
It serve
d
as a comfort zone for him. It
wa
s the same crate that he
’d
had since we adopted him and he love
d
it.

We also brought Benadryl which was supposed to serve as a calming aid to Buddy.
(
I would not
ever
suggest you
use this for your dog without the advice of your dog’s veterinarian
.
)

Needless to say, none of this worked.
After about a half hour into our trip, Buddy decided to chime in
with
our conversation with some annoying, incessant, loud and infuriating barking.

The drive through New York City alone
wa
s stressful without dogs to contend with, as there
wa
s
an abundance
of traffic, too many bridges
,
and a lot of bad, angry drivers.
Adding Buddy to the mix d
id
not help ease the driving situation at all
and wa
s a recipe for disaster.

We lasted about three hours and decided to stop in Pennsylvania for the night.
It was a long day due to
the
closing of the house
,
and we were ready to catch some quality sleep.
We were sure
that
we would be in better moods the next day and
that
after a long walk Buddy would be fine.

Waking up the next day in Pennsylvania to treacherous ice storms was not something that we c
ounted on and did not add any enjoyment
to the trip.
Every surface was super
slick and dangerously slippery; we could not even
find safety
on the grass as it
,
too
, was a solid sheet of ice.

I was read
y to throw in the towel and suggested to
Michael that we should
just take the day off from driving,
even thoug
h it was our first full day
.

I
despise
driving through any type of inclement weather, especially
ice or snow,
and I felt it was just too dangerous.
Michael agreed for about ten minutes and then
quickly
changed his mind.
He wanted to rough out the storm.

Not being much of a daredevil, I put up a small
debate
and then hesitantly agreed.
I wanted to get this long drive over with as well.
I figured since we could not take Buddy for that preplanned long walk, we would just
administer
his first dose of Benadryl the moment he acted up.

I wish I could say that the vet’s advice worked for us and that the little pink pills were the ultimate answer to our prayers.
This, unfortunately, was not true by any
stretch of the imagination
.
Buddy did not falter; instead
,
he graced us with his presence by barking the
entire
time.
That
wa
s not an exaggeration, not one bit.
You would think that no one could possibly carry on for hours on end.
Think again
.

He barked in octaves I did not even know he possessed.
We fed him Benadryl like it was dog biscuits
—
well, only the recommended amount by our vet, but he still was inconsolable and definitely insane.
His crying led to screaming
,
and his screaming led to barking
,
and then back to crying again.
His voice grew so hoarse we almost did not mind because it was a lower sounding bark, but then he gained his voice right back again.

It got to the point where Michael and I could not hold any conversation at all.
If we started talking, Buddy would bark.
If we whispered, Buddy would bark.
We had no choice but to stop every two hours or any time we saw an open field to let him and Brandi out so that Buddy could run and use up some of his pent-up energy.

Make no mistake, the thought had somewhat crossed our mind to leave him there
.
His run would buy us about an hour of peace as Buddy would sleep
thereafter
but once he woke up, he would
be right back where he
left off,
barking and carrying on.

I remember speaking with someone who said golden retrievers
we
re like two
-
year
-
old children
but that they mellow
ed
out at age three or so.
Well, Buddy was six years old when we took this trip and he had not mellowed out at all.
I wish I could find that person and tell them how dead wrong they were
.

Michael and I were trying
our best
to keep our calm composure, but we were very rapidly losing it.
We were out of intelligent
ideas and
completely stressed
. As
we got closer to Vegas, driving up mountains at seventy
-
five miles per hour with a barking dog was not a good position to be in.
I do not know how we did it and lived to tell about it.
Four days seemed like an eternity.

While this trip was definitely not enjoyable by any means, there were, in fact, one or two precious moments
along the way, mostly once we settled down for the night.

During our travels, we stayed at
dog-friendly motel
s
every night
to catch up on some sleep
.
Some were better than others
, and some
definitely should not have been
in business
. W
e were not too picky as we just wanted
to catch some shut-eye
.
That was our main goal.

One evening, w
e stopped at
a
hotel that was
fairly
pleasant
and allowed dogs
.
Inside was a community television room.
We ventured across the street for some ice cream, came back
,
and sat inside this room with our dogs next to us on the couches.
It was
rather
adorable as Buddy and Brandi
loved to snuggle.

Without fail
, Buddy would bark at people and wag his tail as they walked into
his
living room.
No one seemed to mind as they came over to say hello to him
.
It was one feeling of normalcy along the way and it calmed
all of
us down a bit.
Buddy was the social butterfly and loved to greet each individual person.

That same night as we were trying to sleep
,
Buddy kept barking at the ice machine.
Though it kept us up
for a while
, it was
hilarious
listening to Buddy mutter what he thought were his ferocious growls every few minutes.
I think he finally understood after about an hour that the noisy ice machine was not intimated by his growling and barking
and we were finally able to get some sleep to prepare for the rest of our road trip.

Some may call you crazy if you try to reason with a dog.
It is with desperate attempts that you hope they understand you.
When the realization sinks in that your futile pleading goes without understanding or care, you are left with no choice but to think of the next best thing.

By the time we reached Arizona, day three into our trip, we finally lost it.
Full-
fledged, certifiably insane lost it.
Tempers were flying high
,
and Buddy’s cute face was not cutting it for us.
He no longer was that lovable pup.
He was now the epitome of evil.

Thoughts of leaving him on the side of the road really seemed like a fantastic and sane idea.
No pain reliever was
strong enough
to get rid of the blaring headaches that felt like a ton of bricks
smashing
on
top of
our heads.

It
was pure
h
ell
,
and we were stuck living
in it.
The whole idea seemed ludicrous
,
and we thoroughly regretted not throwing the dogs in cargo on a plane regardless of how scared
t
he
y
would be.
His five hours of suffering would have been nothing compared to the past three days of dealing with his nonsense
.

By nightfall, w
e had been on the road
for
about thirteen hours, so we needed to stop for the day.
We found another motel that allowed dogs as
,
thankfully,
they were not too hard to come across.

At this point, we were like zombies, not
fully
awake
and mumbling
gibberish to each other.
We were starving, so we gladly left the dogs in our motel room and walked to Denny’s (a popular restaurant
typically
known for serving breakfast)
across the street. We did not say
a word and
did not really know
what to say.

We had only o
ne more day and
yet
we had no idea how we were going to get through it.
Brandi
had been
an angel the entire way.
And Buddy
had been
the devil.
We were convinced
that
if we shaved his head we would see 666
embedded under his golden fur.

As we walked through the doors of Denny’s, the first thing Michael asked the hostess before even saying hello was
,
“Do you serve beer?”

She
studied us with a bizarre expression before she
muttered a long drawn
-
out
,
“
Y
es.”

Before she could even murmur another sentence Michael pretty much asked her to bring around six of them to our table
—
for starters.
E
vidently, she looked at him like he was kidding and voiced a small chuckle, but promptly noticed that Michael was not
smiling
or blinking for that matter.