We'll probably keep him, because we're suckers - and because we know that we can provide the best home for a dumbass dog such as he is, all things considered - but Joey's really been tempting us to take a trip to the hot dog factory lately. I'm mostly just kidding (but not completely).
He survived our occasionally white-knuckle drive in the wintry mix on the way to see our families before Christmas with little difficulty (he's actually a great car dog), but once we got there all bets were off.
First, he still feels compelled to mark any "new" house, at least a little bit. Second, he'll eat any food that he can reach (even stuff on counters), so we have to keep an eye on him constantly. Third, he had to spend the better part of a week with his old friend/nemesis Rocky, who was kinda freaked out to see our white half-husky/half-jackass again, especially on his own home turf. Fourth, in order to keep him calm during the day when there were so many people (and another dog) around, we had to both give him his anti-anxiety medication , Clomacalm (a life-saver if ever there was one), in the morning, and keep him on a leash in the house to make sure he didn't do anything stupid while unsupervised.
Ah ... but the devil is in the details. (Or is it 'the best laid plans'? Which cliche am I reaching for here?)
Nicole's mom came home from work while we were in the living room watching TV. She came in to say hello and take her coat off, and she put an open bag (the re-usable grocery sack kind) on the floor. On top of the pile of items in the bag was a little paper gift bag full of homemade cookies from one of her co-workers. Not missing the opportunity, Joey (still on his leash) swooped in and grabbed it in his mouth. Nicole managed to tear the cookies away from him, but the bag ripped and a shredded strip of paper fell to the floor between Joey's feet. Nicole's father went to grab the debris and you can guess what happened.
Without so much as a growl or warning of any kind whatsoever, Joey chomped down on his hand and wouldn't let go until I smacked him a few times (pretty hard, with an open hand) across his backside. The bite drew blood, which Nicole's dad ended up partially smearing across Joey's snout while trying to free himself, so it looked pretty bad when it was all over.
Joey had bitten me several months ago under different circumstances (long story short: I was trying to prevent him from choking on a bandage we'd applied to a cut he had on his leg, and he got defensive), but I thought that was just an unfortunate situation propelled by his own physical discomfort more than by any aggressive tendencies. Turns out, he's just kind of a douchebag sometimes, I guess. Also, there was no blood in my case.
In the end, a trip to the doctor's office the next day led to a prescription for light antibiotics but little else. Joey's future is questionable regarding further trips to Massachusetts, to say the least.
Worthy of note, in an unfortunate kind of way, was the incredible streak of bad luck with Nicole's family as it related to hand injuries:
Days before, Nicole suffered second degree burns to her hand due to a work-related incident. When one works in the food industry, as she does, there's an inherent risk of injury because of dangerous machinery, hot stoves and ovens, and everything that goes with using fancy-schmancy kitchen/factory equipment. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that her burns resulted from a freak oatmeal incident in the cafeteria. Go figure. Pretty nasty stuff, to be honest. There's going to be a nice-sized scar, and her skin is slowly growning back over the pinkish strip of gross that she's currently keeping clean.
Not to be outdone, while we were visiting her family over the holidays, her mother burned her hand in a freak coffee-pot accident involving a mystery stream of scalding hot water, resulting in a nice patch of blistering skin on her wrist. Fortunately (?), Nicole had burn cream of her own with her and was able to jump-start the healing process without the need for a doctor. Then, the bite. Nicole's two brothers survived somehow, and I tempted fate by not wearing gloves or keeping my hands in my pockets for the rest of the trip.
***
The trip to Massachusetts was a mess. The plans we'd made fell through for the most part, because of the weather and because of my family's work-schedule. We had hoped to go to Worcester for the first half of the week to see my family, then go to Boston for the second half to see Nicole's, but the lingering cleanup from the previous week's ice storm and the threat of additional snow led us to take our chances on the slight window of opportunity we had to get out of New Jersey late on Saturday afternoon and go straight to her family's place.
It had snowed pretty hard in New Jersey on Friday morning and afternoon, slightly harder in Massachusetts. The forecast called for additional snow starting Sunday morning - up to ten inches, according to weather.com. We knew that if we didn't get out on Saturday evening, by which time the roads had been pretty well plowed and salted from the previous day's storm, we'd probably have to sit out Sunday, and possibly Monday too, since everything was going to freeze over. Since we're the only people in America without a four-wheel-drive SUV, apparently, we didn't want to risk travel on icy roads.
We packed up and hit the road as the sun was setting, so it was dark for pretty much the entirety of the trip. And when I say "packed up", I mean we could barely see out of the back window because of the bags full of gifts, clothes, and travel supplies. Plus, Joey was in the back seat, which prevented us from putting bags there with him, in case he got curious and wanted to start gnawing on things.
Somewhere in New York state, past the Tappan Zee bridge, we pulled into a rest stop that apparently hadn't yet escaped the last Ice Age. Not only were we freezing cold when we went to use the restrooms, I had to push the car from the front bumper while Nicole had the car in reverse with the pedal down because we had no traction in the snow that had built up from the snowfall the day before. Then, when we finally got out of the parking space, I had to go to the back of the car and push while Nicole was in drive because we got stuck AGAIN. Once we got back onto the highway we were fine, but we were questioning our decision to leave our apartment in the first place.
Then, in Connecticut, we couldn't tell if we were seeing black ice or just really wet, dark pavement. In the right lane, cars were cautiously traveling at a snail's pace. In the left, people were zooming by well over the speed limit. So who knew? All we knew was that we could barely see out of our back window, and had to be careful not only for ourselves, but for our dog. The best moment, in retrospect, was Nicole trying to see the road more clearly, turning on the high-beams. In a surprising development, we discovered that snow was actually falling fairly heavily, a fact we weren't aware of with just our regular beams on. Ignorance being bliss, she said "Ohhh ... kay ..." and turned the high beams back off. What we couldn't see couldn't hurt us.
Anyway, we finally made it to Boston a little after 10 p.m., and barely an hour after we arrived the streets were covered in at least an inch of fresh snow. The next morning, I opened the curtains and raised the shade to reveal a sloppy wonderland that we'd barely missed along the way. We didn't move the car again until Christmas day, which was a-ok with me.
The adventure will continue in Part II!
He survived our occasionally white-knuckle drive in the wintry mix on the way to see our families before Christmas with little difficulty (he's actually a great car dog), but once we got there all bets were off.
First, he still feels compelled to mark any "new" house, at least a little bit. Second, he'll eat any food that he can reach (even stuff on counters), so we have to keep an eye on him constantly. Third, he had to spend the better part of a week with his old friend/nemesis Rocky, who was kinda freaked out to see our white half-husky/half-jackass again, especially on his own home turf. Fourth, in order to keep him calm during the day when there were so many people (and another dog) around, we had to both give him his anti-anxiety medication , Clomacalm (a life-saver if ever there was one), in the morning, and keep him on a leash in the house to make sure he didn't do anything stupid while unsupervised.
Ah ... but the devil is in the details. (Or is it 'the best laid plans'? Which cliche am I reaching for here?)
Nicole's mom came home from work while we were in the living room watching TV. She came in to say hello and take her coat off, and she put an open bag (the re-usable grocery sack kind) on the floor. On top of the pile of items in the bag was a little paper gift bag full of homemade cookies from one of her co-workers. Not missing the opportunity, Joey (still on his leash) swooped in and grabbed it in his mouth. Nicole managed to tear the cookies away from him, but the bag ripped and a shredded strip of paper fell to the floor between Joey's feet. Nicole's father went to grab the debris and you can guess what happened.
Without so much as a growl or warning of any kind whatsoever, Joey chomped down on his hand and wouldn't let go until I smacked him a few times (pretty hard, with an open hand) across his backside. The bite drew blood, which Nicole's dad ended up partially smearing across Joey's snout while trying to free himself, so it looked pretty bad when it was all over.
Joey had bitten me several months ago under different circumstances (long story short: I was trying to prevent him from choking on a bandage we'd applied to a cut he had on his leg, and he got defensive), but I thought that was just an unfortunate situation propelled by his own physical discomfort more than by any aggressive tendencies. Turns out, he's just kind of a douchebag sometimes, I guess. Also, there was no blood in my case.
In the end, a trip to the doctor's office the next day led to a prescription for light antibiotics but little else. Joey's future is questionable regarding further trips to Massachusetts, to say the least.
Worthy of note, in an unfortunate kind of way, was the incredible streak of bad luck with Nicole's family as it related to hand injuries:
Days before, Nicole suffered second degree burns to her hand due to a work-related incident. When one works in the food industry, as she does, there's an inherent risk of injury because of dangerous machinery, hot stoves and ovens, and everything that goes with using fancy-schmancy kitchen/factory equipment. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that her burns resulted from a freak oatmeal incident in the cafeteria. Go figure. Pretty nasty stuff, to be honest. There's going to be a nice-sized scar, and her skin is slowly growning back over the pinkish strip of gross that she's currently keeping clean.
Not to be outdone, while we were visiting her family over the holidays, her mother burned her hand in a freak coffee-pot accident involving a mystery stream of scalding hot water, resulting in a nice patch of blistering skin on her wrist. Fortunately (?), Nicole had burn cream of her own with her and was able to jump-start the healing process without the need for a doctor. Then, the bite. Nicole's two brothers survived somehow, and I tempted fate by not wearing gloves or keeping my hands in my pockets for the rest of the trip.
***
The trip to Massachusetts was a mess. The plans we'd made fell through for the most part, because of the weather and because of my family's work-schedule. We had hoped to go to Worcester for the first half of the week to see my family, then go to Boston for the second half to see Nicole's, but the lingering cleanup from the previous week's ice storm and the threat of additional snow led us to take our chances on the slight window of opportunity we had to get out of New Jersey late on Saturday afternoon and go straight to her family's place.
It had snowed pretty hard in New Jersey on Friday morning and afternoon, slightly harder in Massachusetts. The forecast called for additional snow starting Sunday morning - up to ten inches, according to weather.com. We knew that if we didn't get out on Saturday evening, by which time the roads had been pretty well plowed and salted from the previous day's storm, we'd probably have to sit out Sunday, and possibly Monday too, since everything was going to freeze over. Since we're the only people in America without a four-wheel-drive SUV, apparently, we didn't want to risk travel on icy roads.
We packed up and hit the road as the sun was setting, so it was dark for pretty much the entirety of the trip. And when I say "packed up", I mean we could barely see out of the back window because of the bags full of gifts, clothes, and travel supplies. Plus, Joey was in the back seat, which prevented us from putting bags there with him, in case he got curious and wanted to start gnawing on things.
Somewhere in New York state, past the Tappan Zee bridge, we pulled into a rest stop that apparently hadn't yet escaped the last Ice Age. Not only were we freezing cold when we went to use the restrooms, I had to push the car from the front bumper while Nicole had the car in reverse with the pedal down because we had no traction in the snow that had built up from the snowfall the day before. Then, when we finally got out of the parking space, I had to go to the back of the car and push while Nicole was in drive because we got stuck AGAIN. Once we got back onto the highway we were fine, but we were questioning our decision to leave our apartment in the first place.
Then, in Connecticut, we couldn't tell if we were seeing black ice or just really wet, dark pavement. In the right lane, cars were cautiously traveling at a snail's pace. In the left, people were zooming by well over the speed limit. So who knew? All we knew was that we could barely see out of our back window, and had to be careful not only for ourselves, but for our dog. The best moment, in retrospect, was Nicole trying to see the road more clearly, turning on the high-beams. In a surprising development, we discovered that snow was actually falling fairly heavily, a fact we weren't aware of with just our regular beams on. Ignorance being bliss, she said "Ohhh ... kay ..." and turned the high beams back off. What we couldn't see couldn't hurt us.
Anyway, we finally made it to Boston a little after 10 p.m., and barely an hour after we arrived the streets were covered in at least an inch of fresh snow. The next morning, I opened the curtains and raised the shade to reveal a sloppy wonderland that we'd barely missed along the way. We didn't move the car again until Christmas day, which was a-ok with me.
The adventure will continue in Part II!
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