Thanksgiving Holiday Travels with the Dogs

For the Thanksgiving holiday, Brian and I bravely took Heineken and Stella to Las Cruces with us, a 12-hour drive. Before the trip, I was extremely worried about having the dogs at my mother-in-law’s house. I thought surely they would break something in their frequent outbursts of play.

We left Tuesday morning, and Stella commenced the car ride by whining steadily for about the first hour. This was Stella’s first ride longer than 20 minutes so maybe she wasn’t sure what to expect. Heineken got in the car and laid on her bed like an experienced traveler. After the first stop (about 4 hours into the trip), Stella got back into the car and settled down. I think she even took a nap.

Stella did pretty well until we neared El Paso (with about 2 hours to go in the trip). In this area, the roads had rumble strips in the middle dashed lines. So every time we changed lanes we went over a rumble strip. This scared the living daylight out of Stella and she would try to get in our laps. For the last 2 hours of the trip, we fought with her to stay in the back seat.

Once we got to the house, there was general excitement. Heineken remembered the place and Stella was her usually loud squealing self. Once inside, we kept Stella on the leash, but we let Heineken loose. The first thing Heineken did was go upstairs. Last Christmas, we were in Las Cruces and had Heineken with us. At that time, Brian’s mom had a cat, named Smokey. Heineken apparently remembered Smokey and thus began her weeklong search for him. Heineken even spent one afternoon looking under the bed for Smokey. I think Smokey’s spirit was probably haunting Heineken all week as a form of revenge for last year.

We decided to use the chain in the backyard even though it has a fence. Last Christmas, Heineken jumped over the fence when she saw the neighbor’s dog. Plus Stella is part kangaroo and could jump over the fence easily. Stella really liked Xena, Brian’s mom’s dog. Stella was ready to play and jump all over Xena. Xena is an older dog though and Stella’s friendliness was a little too much for Xena to handle.

We took them hiking with us in an attempt to wear them out. We hiked about 5 miles. Stella was a natural hiker. Heineken did pretty well too, but pulled a lot more. While on this hike, we decided that Heineken has pulled her way into getting a halti. So I’m going to go back to Petco and buy a Halti for Heineken this week. The hike didn’t wear Stella out though. Once we got home, she was still on the go…tormenting Xena, sniffing around, eating plant leaves, storming up and down the stairs.

A couple of times they started playing - they liked to chase each other up and down the stairs – but for the most part we were able to keep them from breaking anything and tearing up the house.

They both did pretty good in the car ride back home as well. For the first 2 hours, we had the rumble strip terror when we changed lanes, but other than that Stella was a good traveler. She figured out Heineken’s spot, which is head on the console, butt on the back seat. I think this made Heineken a little more restless since her spot was taken, but sometimes she squeezed in and tried to share the console with Stella. Overall I would call the week a successful trip!

Stella's exhaustion finally caught up with her on Sunday.  She took advantage of Brian's lap and slept all day!