Gracie's Adventures
Colorado must have been founded especially for Golden Retrievers. Maybe other dogs too, but specifically for GRs. We returned from a two week trip with Grace to Durango and she had the time of her life. Texas is much too hot for the princess during the summer. When she was a baby, we took her to the farmer’s market during the summer and she vomited her breakfast it was so hot. When we take her on walks here at home, she pulls with all of her might to the shady spots under the trees, hurls herself on the ground, and won’t move. In Colorado, however, she was so frisky and full of energy that she never wanted to come inside. Usually she will come inside for a dog biscuit, but she was not having it this time. We had to use actual salmon to get that dog close enough to drag her inside.
The first hike was to Little Molas and she did surprisingly well. We had her on the long leash and we only had a few close calls where she would wrap herself around us and then take off almost causing us to fall over (this does apparently happen with GRs, you can ask Dave and Linda). She made it about three and a half hours. She drank most of the water we brought for the three of us. Stinker.
The first Friday we were there, Bill, Bill, and I drove to the airport to pick up Sabrina and then went out to dinner. We were gone for about three hours. When we pulled into the garage, we opened the car doors and Grace was right there to greet us. How did she get in the garage you may be asking yourselves? When we walked in the house, the front door was wide open. WIDE OPEN. She and Jasper had been “free” for three hours (well, I guess that depends on when they got the front door open). It is an absolute miracle that Grace was not in another county by that time or that someone didn’t take her or hit her with their car. We were so relieved. If anything had happened to her…. Later in the evening, I looked out the back door and there was Grace. She had escaped again! We have no idea how she was getting out. It didn’t happen again though.
We took Grace and Jasper to the Spud Lake hike on Sunday and I wouldn’t call it much of a lake. More of a smelly mud pit, which of course attracted the dogs right away and they jumped right in. The drive home literally smelled like shit. Those were some dirty ass dogs. We put them both in the shower and it took me hours to comb the green nastiness out of Grace’s tail.
We moved to a cabin in Hesperus on Monday and as soon as Grace got a chance, she took off. I ran after her screaming because she was in the road (which is not a high traffic road, but you just never know) and I became aware that it might be frightening for a dog to have someone chasing them and screaming so I stopped. And then she stopped and ran back towards the house. Then a guy and some kids in a golf cart drove by and they stopped to watch us try and convince Grace to go back inside the gate. We were begging and pleading with her and she just thought it was a big game.
We took her on a hike on Tuesday and she was pretty much a total weenie. She wanted to lie down in the shade and jump in every mud puddle. She adored the waterfall, but was scared of the actual waterfall part.
On Thursday, we took her to Telluride and she was the star of the show. Bill is like a proud papa with his little girl. She eats up all of the attention and is a total ham. She met her match in a Havanese named Buster. He was a third of Grace’s size and I don’t know if he was trying to get romantic, but he kept trying to jump on top of her.
She was a trooper on the ride home Friday. A full 15 hours in the car is really hard on anyone and I think probably even harder on a spunky GR, but she just curled up in her little hammock and slept almost the whole way.
She’s been pretty lethargic since we got back. I think Colorado really wore her out. I’m sure she can’t wait to go back though. As you parents out there know, traveling with children is not easy. I had several moments of aggravation over her little temper tantrums and inability to obey her parents. But when you get to see their faces all excited about experiencing something new and when they curl up with you beside the fire and lick your toes (OK if any of your human children do this, ewww, we need to talk), those are just memories that fill your heart. I hope they filled hers too.
