Anyway, Tucker's biggest adventure since the last blog was Big Sweep. Each year, the Honors Student Association travels to Ashe County (specifically West Jefferson) to clean out several miles of the New River via canoe. We camp beside the river in New River State Park, too.
Tucker is a wonderful traveler - he slept through the majority of the roughly 4 hour car ride. When we got to camp, I needed to help set things up, so I passed him off to Ethan, the son of two professors on the trip. Ethan and Tucker were best buddies by the end of the weekend. :)
To answer your next question, yes, Tucker slept in the tent with Stephanie and me and yes, he got in my sleeping bag sometimes. :) Basically, he used me as his personal heater, so he went back and forth from his spot in the middle of the tent to in my sleeping bag (or on top of me). Considering that he has never slept anywhere but a crate, I thought he did a great job in the tent.
Saturday morning, we rose early, got ready, and went to the river to begin our morning/afternoon of canoeing. I believe we had about a 5 mile stretch, so we were on the water from about 10 to 1 or 2... I can't really remember when we pulled out. Tucker had his very own life vest, which ironically enough, matched the life vests the park service made Steph and I wear. Now for a disclaimer - Tucker has always liked water, which is why I brought him. I thought, "a Labrador and a river - what could go wrong?" One of these days, I will learn the danger of assumptions....
Tucker hates canoeing. He loved the river, but he HATED the canoe. As soon as I put him in the boat, he started to whine. He whined almost constantly for quite some time, and I felt horrible, but it wasn't as if we could just pull out of the river anywhere. So, he had no choice but to grin and bear it. About five minutes down the river, Tucker decided to dive head first out of the front of the canoe (he had been trying before this, but I had always managed to keep him in the boat). When he bobbed back up, he turned, dripping, and looked at me as if to say, "MOM IT'S COLD!" Yes, it's September, but this is a mountain river we're talking about - and it was only 10am. Much to his delight, I got out of the canoe and fished him out of the river. From then on, he didn't really try to get out of the canoe - he decided that the canoe was at least better than the frigid waters.
Considering his dislike of the canoe, I thought he did an excellent job. As I said, he was much better about staying in the canoe after his little plunge, and although he whined (and attempted to howl at one point) quite a bit, he was altogether well behaved. At one point we stopped on an "island" of sorts made of river stones and I let Tucker hop out for a few minutes. He was instantly happier, sniffing every rock he could find, splashing in the shallows, and attacking some plants. You should have seen his face when he realized I was going to put him back in the canoe. ;)
About an hour from the take out, he got sleepy. Keep in mind, Tucker's sign name (an ASL thing) basically means "lazy Tucker", so it wasn't pretty when he missed his mid-morning nap. He tried desperately to find a comfortable way to sleep in the canoe. He tried resting his head in my lap and on the side of the canoe, but he just couldn't do it. By the time we got to the take out, he was miserably tired. I got out of the canoe, picked him up, and carried him across the rest of the river to the shore and handed him off to someone. By the time Steph and I got our canoe cleaned out and got up on the bank, he was in one of the deepest puppy comas I've ever seen. We had to carry him up to the hose to wash him off.
Once he was on land again, he had a wonderful time. Honestly, we only had one major problem at camp - eating rocks. The first night, we noticed he was licking the gravel around the campfire, but assumed he was just licking them. The next morning, when he pooped straight gravel twice in a row, I realized I had been mistaken. Saturday night, in an effort to keep the rock consumption to a minimum, I sat away from the fire on the grass with him. Well, the boys had cut up firewood there and left piles of wood chips. Guess what Tucker did. Yep, he ate it. While I assumed that wood chips were at least better than rocks, I really didn't want him eating either one. So, although it was against Leader Dog rules, I let him sit in my lap in the pop up chair by the fire that night. I figured his physical health was more important at that moment than a training mishap. He was fast asleep almost immediately anyway, so he may not even remember it.
He's had a pretty crazy day today as well. The metropolis of Boiling Springs turned 100 today! There was a street fair, so we walked around playing with kids and other dogs for an hour or two, and that just wore the poor boy out. I let him stay in the dorm with a friend while I participated in the first ever Boiling Springs Flash Mob (soooo much fun) and came back to find him passed out. :)
Thankfully for me, he slept the majority of the afternoon and let me get some work done. Tonight, they had fireworks at Boiling Springs Baptist, so we walked across the street for those. As usual Tucker did a great job even though we were 1. walking on a new road, 2. with heavy (heavy for Boiling Springs mind you) traffic, 3. in the dark, 4. with fireworks exploding. He's such a trooper. What was really funny was watching him try to figure out why the sound of the fireworks was echoing off of the Library. :) He couldn't figure out why the sound and flash were on his left one second, and then the sound was on his right the next.
Now he's passed out on the floor. :)
Here are some Big Sweep pics:
Matching.
"Mom, I hate this."
"Okay, so the canoe is better than the river." (After jumping out of the canoe)
Adventure Dog (BTW - he was never tied to the canoe just in case it flipped - the leash was for land excursions only.)
Chillin' on a giant rock.
"Are we there yet?"
Puppy Coma :)
No comments:
Post a Comment