The Labraventures of Carbón, Spanish (ex-) foster dog extraordinaire

Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
M.F. said:
Sorry you were sad leaving Cornwall. At least you had a fun extended farewell trip. Lovely to see Pongo looking so well. How old is he? I’m pretty sure he’s Snowie’s age—13? 14?
Click to expand...
Pongo looks AMAZING and still plays like a puppy. Maybe for not as long as years ago, but he still play bows and acts silly. 🥰 I think he’s 11 now. You’d never know it!
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
Joy said:
I'm laughing at Carbon's lack of awareness of all the effort his ML has to put into the 'magical' transportation! Safe travels. x
Click to expand...
Yep, you can say that again. This trip had been remarkably smooth until today. Ok, I did leave my backpack with my and Carbon’s most important worldly belongs (both our passports, Monkey) in it at a friend’s, then had to drive back for it once I realized, which made me very late to @Granca’s, but overall it’s gone well.

Today our luck at least temporarily ran out. Morning walk on the beach, smooth 7 hour drive. Get to the lovely Airbnb reserved months ago. There were spiral stairs up to the studio, but nothing Carbón hadn’t handled like a champ before.

But…first there were chickens at the house entrance that startled him, and then a CAT was on the stairs. He is SO afraid of cats for some reason. I gently picked the cat up and removed him from the steps, but now I smelled of cat and the world was WRONG.

So Carbón balked at those stairs. And tried to throw himself off of them. And then just shut down. I took him back to the car to get him a drink and we sat in the shade for a while. It was over 30C, which didn’t help.

We tried again. He made it nearly to the top, slipped his harness and ran back down. I really wanted to cry.

I sat with him again in the shade and looked at last minute hotels nearby we could book. The cost and additional drive time was daunting, so before hitting ‘book now’, we tried one more time. I tightened his harness so he could hardly breathe (and couldn’t slip it), grabbed the handrails (luckily close together and sturdy), and hauled him up like a sack of lead potatoes.

We made it. 🥵

However, he is not getting a wee this evening. He can hold it until tomorrow whether he likes it or not. I do empathise with his bladder, but there’s no way I can lug him up the stairs again today. As the French say, I am cooked!

Despite everything, I am proud of him. He could have tried to climb on the top of my head and we both could have hurt ourselves. But that last try he just let himself go limp and let me haul him up. Could have been because I kept mentioning that dinner was upstairs. The Labrador superpower: ANYTHING for food. 😏

The evil stairs
IMG_7557.jpeg

It’s a nice Airbnb though, complete with mega sunlounger
IMG_7558.jpeg

pee ess: yes, I did first try bribing him upstairs using food lures, but no dice
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
Granca said:
I don’t think your backpack’s big enough…! Seriously, though, I think I might think twice about those spiral stairs, not because they’re spiral but it looks quite high?
Click to expand...
Backpack isn’t coming off at all since o left it behind: it’s my new obsession. 😆

Agree, we won’t be doing any more outdoor spiral staircases. Like those sailor stairs we had in Venice last year, now crossed off the holiday rental list.

Unfortunately he is now UP the stairs, so tomorrow morning must come DOWN the stairs. At least gravity is on my side. 😬
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top