Yosemite

Last week was Zuzu’s first vacation and she did great!

I was prepared for the trip.  Towels, toys, treats, food, garbage bags, paper towels, “Resolve for Pets”, a sponge, giant raw hides, you name it.  But, my puppy, who is not so fond of riding in the car, actually settled down and slept!  And as we were driving around the park, she would either nap, cuddle, or just sit up and look out the window.  It was so much better than the crying, pacing, throwing up, and peeing that we’ve had in the past.  SOOO much better!

The hotel went great too.  It was like she left all of her puppy-ness at home.  We brought her crate for when we went down to the swimming pool, but the rest of the time she was with us.  In the hotel, she would just lay down and watch what was going on, or take a nap.  There was no eating of bedspreads or furniture, running, jumping, nipping, or any naughtiness whatsoever.  The only misbehavior was a scary shadow (her own) that had to be put in its place with lots of barking!

She did slow us down while walking around the park though.  Not by her pace, by the attention she drew.  I think Zuzu got more attention from the other people in the park than the waterfalls did!  Every 20 feet or so, we were stopped by people wanting to admire, pet, and learn all about our beautiful puppy!  It was funny listening to Jim give the same explanation over and over and over again.  I wish I had little information cards with the EMDAA website on it to pass out, so people could just look them up on their own.  I’m not even sure how many times I spelled Estrela.  “No, Estrela....E-S-T-R-E-L-A.”

And Zuzu decided that she loves climbing, and she loves fresh, cold, mountain stream water.  If there was a stream that was flowing slowly enough and was shallow, Jim would let her drink from it and she would lap up gallons!  The water we brought for her and poured into her bowl, she would ignore.

The only weird thing that we learned about Zuzu and traveling, is she does not like to go to the bathroom in unfamiliar places.  We could not get her to go at the rest area, and it took about four walks and a couple of hours to get her to pee at the hotel.  She went from about 9:30 am until about 4:30 pm the first day, without doing anything!  On the other days, other than first thing in the morning, each walk was a challenge.  And she never went in the park, only at the hotel.  I’m hoping she gets over that before our cross country trip this summer!  I just can’t imagine how that could be comfortable for her at all.

Overall though, it was such a successful trip that I can’t wait to bring her everywhere we go from now on.  I hope my family doesn’t mind big dogs in their homes when I visit!