Well, I thought today would be a good day to drive Savannah to the vet to get her weight checked because the supply of flea/tick/heartworm medication needed a renewal, but they needed her weight before giving me the new prescription.
I had walked her this morning around eight o'clock, and was ready to drive to the vet at 9:30.... I didn't walk Savannah again because once she pees in the morning she doesn't pee again until lunch-time... and the vet's office is only a little farther than the dog park. I spread her blanket on the back seat of my husband's car and off we went. I'm sure that Savannah saw the dog park as we passed it on the main highway, and was probably wondering why we didn't stop there.
A bit past that dog park is a large intersection where I took a left turn to get me to the second big intersection that gets me on the road going towards the vet's office. That particular road is just two lanes and any obstruction causes major traffic jams (if you can call the small number of cars here 'traffic'). The obstruction this morning was three huge trucks from the highway department... they were removing old yellow metal reflectors from the road and re-painting the yellow lines where the sun had disintegrated the paint. A worthy endeavor, to say the least, but those three trucks were filled with the most god-awful pitiful uselessly slow workers that I think I've ever seen in my life.
They didn't pull over towards the shoulder of the road, and the trucks were so wide anyway that they took up not only the right lane but part of the left lane as well, which made working on those yellow lines even slower than it needed to be. One worker would drive the truck four or five feet, put the vehicle in 'park,' get out of the truck and pull up a reflector and toss it into the back of the truck, then he'd get back into the truck, put it in gear, drive up another few feet, put the vehicle in park, etc., etc., etc. To say the least, it was maddening, and I swear that the man getting in and out of that truck couldn't have been any slower if he had tried. I looked in my rear-view mirror and I think every vehicle in this town was backed up behind me. Some of them were making U-turns, in an effort to get out of that mess and take another road to where they needed to go.
When I realized that it had taken me 15 minutes to drive about 150 feet, I made a U-turn as well.... and because of the road I needed to take to get to the vet's, I had to drive all the way through town, get on the feeder road by the highway, then make a left to get on that same two-lane road which would get me to the road where the vet is located. And there was Savannah... very quiet in the back seat of the car... looking out of the window and seeming to be just fine.
Finally, finally.... I got on that same two-lane road where I had made the U-turn, but now I was going in the opposite direction towards the vet's road, and I could see that the three highway department trucks were still hopelessly, slowly plodding along, and now there must have been five hundred cars backed up behind them. I drove along effortlessly and made a right turn onto the vet's road.... and Savannah was still sitting in the back seat and very quiet.
The vet that we use has his offices in a brown log-cabin type of building... very distinctive... and the kennels where he boards dogs are right close to the parking lot. I looked in the rear-view mirror and I could see the very serious look on Savannah's face... I was positive that she recognized that log cabin and remembered that the last time she was there was for spaying... plus I had to leave her there for the day three months ago.
I got out of the front seat and in the three seconds that it took for me to close the front door and open up the back door, Savannah had peed on the blanket, which of course went right through to the seat of the car. Oh my. Savannah put her head right down in embarrassment and she couldn't even look at me. I rolled up that blanket and put it on the floor of the car and then noticed that the pee had gotten on part of her leash as well. Good grief.
I didn't say a word to Savannah other than "It's okay, Savannah... everything is okay." I didn't want to even call attention to her mishap because I knew it wasn't her fault. First of all, I really should have walked her before I made her get into the car. And when that traffic was all backed up because of the inefficiency of those workers, I should have just headed for home when I made that U-turn instead of making such a long trip all around town to get back to where I needed to go. I think all of that driving was just too much for this puppy, and then the sight of the vet's office was the last drop in the puppy bucket that got her upset.
The weigh-in took just a minute or so (Savannah is 56 pounds now) and they gave me the prescription for the medication. I had also wanted them to trim her nails, but I thought she'd had enough trauma for one morning so I just paid for the medication and got us out of there without mentioning anything about Savannah's 'accident' in the car.
I walked Savannah around in the grass outside the vet's office but the sight of the outdoor kennels there frightened her. (Was she remembering her previous life in a similar kennel?) Into the car we went, and I got home quickly being that the highway work trucks were still out there, but moving slowly in the opposite direction.
When I pulled into our driveway, I walked Savannah there in our grass and she did everything she had to do and then some... clearly, the entire morning drive made her very anxious. I took her blanket and popped it into the washing machine, and then I soaked her leash in soap and water. I cleaned off the underside of Savannah and I kept telling her that she was a good puppy and every bit of her 56 pounds was just perfectly perfect.
Savannah is growing and growing... but she's still a puppy. Never again will I make her get into a car without first walking her up and down the road. Savannah is fine now... the car seat is cleaned and fine... the blanket has been washed and dried.... but I still feel badly for this poor 56-pound puppy.
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