I Have No Louisiana Pictures, Or Why To Keep Training Your Dog On A Leash

Ok, I went down to see my husband, he's got his truck in Louisiana working construction. What does this have to do with animals you ask? Well Mugsey the Labrador Retriever and Dispatch the Bichon Frise went with me. Dispatch doesn't ride well, he still thinks he should be on my lap. Once we had 700 miles of whining, this wasn't that bad, it was only like 650 miles. Just kidding, he was quiet some of the time.

So I take off in the middle of the night headed for Louisiana alone with two dogs. I tried to take a nap after work but no dice so I finally got up about 11 and left about midnight. The first bathroom break was North of Springfield MO. The gas station attendant was trying to make friends with Mugsey, and he got a big deep WHOOF for his troubles, after that I wasn't so worried about traveling alone with the two "boys". Little did the attendant know Dispatch would gnaw his leg off if he'd gotten too much closer to the car. OK, I'm kidding but Dispatch said he would have. Mugsey slept and slept, Dispatch paced and panted, he was better if he could touch me but I sort of like to be turned mostly toward the steering wheel when going down the road.
So I don't remember much except thinking I really hoped the dogs didn't get sick going down 65 highway in Northern Arkansas so I took it sort of easy, it was getting close to daybreak when we stopped North of Conway, then I could call people because they were actually awake and life got easier. If you are from Arkansas pardon me but they don't believe in too many speed limit signs or signs announcing which road you are on, it's sort of a guessing game. I guessed right except for one time they said 167 turned the next left and they really meant it except it looked like a construction road going into a cow pasture, it was only there was more highway . The only wrong turn I took till I got to where my husband was, then I took another wrong turn and played slow motion chicken with a semi but that comes later (he won, I decided to delicately back up and go in the RIGHT way?). So it's early morning, every time we've stopped I've tried to get the dogs to go potty. Remember Mugsey the WHOOF dog? Well he acts like he's never been close to people or vehicles before every time we stop @ a gas station for gas and potty breaks. The lab acts like I perhaps beat him also, imagine, slink slink tail down, I'm insisting he wears a leash because he's not as well trained as Dispatch who has on a leash too. The lab has been to town many many times lately but for some reason traveling with mama in the car makes him more fearful than traveling with Daddy in the pickup. It's that leash thing mama insists he wears, it is a connection with the devil he's pretty sure I think?

So now I have this bichon that potties on command but THEN he takes his leash in his teeth and walks on his hind legs to me after pottying and scraping the grass thoroughly like a little bull while I'm pleading with the slinking fearful labrador to PLEASE go potty. So I put the show off bichon back in the car and take the lab for a walk by himself, nothing, no pottying from the lab, plus he looks like I've stolen him from his true master, the only time he wags his tail is when he's getting BACK in the car after not pottying again.

We get to where my husband is working construction in Louisiana, well where our camper is, husband has taken part of the day off but wants me to come out to the staging area so I do. That's where I play chicken with the big truck, it seems you go in on the left and not the right, I finally get on the right road after dodging all these HUGE car swallowing mud puddles, I see no other cars, just pickups and semis, then I get back in the parking lot where husband is. You have to remember the bichon is talking this whole time, harrr huh harr huh which really adds to my concentration. There are definitely holes that would rip the tires right off my car and a 4 inch jog isn't anything for a semi but for a low wanna be sports car it's quite a jump. So we finally get to husband and I just let the dogs go, then I take them to the grass without leashes so they can go potty and they do. So I'm walking back watching the lab so he doesn't get muddy because everywhere there's a hole there's MUD, Louisiana MUD, and the bichon is gaily trotting along behind like he usually does and plop, the bichon sort of disappears. He's in a hole between two logs in the parking lot, in the mud, the stinking mud. So he jumps out and immediately wants picked up and gets mud all over me, there are people around I'm meeting and shaking hands while trying to wipe most of the mud off of the bichon before he distributes it on me and the other people who he's SO very glad to see. And I'm fielding the usual, is it a poodle questions about the bichon and why is Mugsey named Mugsey?

So that was pretty much our adventure except the lab still acts like I've been abusing him when I put him on the leash and the bichon acts like he owns the world, I've given up putting the bichon on a leash because he never goes anywhere but right beside me and it's embarrassing when he holds the leash in his mouth and follows me on his hind feet, I'm not kidding but naturally I didn't have the camera anytime he did it. Also the bichon did sleep on the way home past Little Rock, he snuck in the front seat and faced away from me, that way I couldn't see him? You do know if a dog can't see you you can't see them didn't you? We were also going through Little Rock right after that Military Recruiter got shot, traffic was backing up, I did hear more about it on the news, poor poor man.

We get home today and I'm talking to my husband and all the cats and dogs are frolicking on the lawn and I see a big red cat in the log cabin, we have two light red cats, they are both in the grass frolicking with their friend the bichon. So I go over there and take a picture (with my new phone), seems I've acquired another cat while I was gone?

It seems I can't transfer pictures from my new phone to my ancient (4 year old) desktop without an act of congress (or I figure out what I'm missing besides brains) so pictures of the cat will have to wait because it disappeared when I went to get the real camera.

Postscript: More than one way to skin a cat (pardon the pun), sent the picture to my daughters phone who had GOOD internet service on her phone so then she sent it to my email!! See I told you there was a kitty in the log cabin? Thanks Sis!!