Monday, December 21, 2009

Help bring Holiday Cheer to Elliot, my Yellow Lab

My Yellow Lab Elliot needs your help this holiday season. He wants a nice big crate so he never has to drive to Palm Springs with me again. He hates the car and knows I'm too cheap to buy the crate. He may not like airplanes either but I think it's safe to say he's willing to chance it. I saw daggers in his eyes as I packed suitcase after suitcase after suitcase. "Oy, she's leaving again? Didn't we just take this trip?" Poor thing perked up a little when he saw the bag of dog biscuits I had in my hand but it was short lived. When I opened the back door and told him to jump in he sat down. "Go Elliot go , I cheered. I promise we'll stop at nicer gas stations this year, and no more cheap motels either but please just jump in!" He didn't budge. I ran back to the house for half a chicken.

I was in tears and the dog was licking his lips. He loves chicken, especially my mother's but we had to get going and he didn't want to move his bootay. I admit the backseat wasn't inviting, as it's a little small for my beefy boy, but trading in the car would take too long. Crap. Maybe my tears worked or my trick of slowly pulling away without him , but he got up. We were out of the driveway 45 minutes behind schedule. Elliot is very particular , the exception being food. He would eat loose change if I wasn't too much of a tightwad to leave it laying around. Where he pees is another story.

Grass is his preferred surface. It must smell inviting and feel soft and cushy under his very sensitive feet. Once out of Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma there was no more grass , just brush. "Pee for crying out loud," was the bubble over my head as I watched beefy boy gingerly place one paw at a time on the prickly ground trying to walk no less consider anything else. With each tiny step he held up a foot for me to wipe off . I think this added 5 hours to the trip. I tried to be patient yet longingly looked up at planes as they zoomed overhead. So this holiday season if you eat a chicken think of Elliot and help get him a crate.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Elliot's problem is not that he has no crate. His problem is that his mother hates snow. Hates it! Hates it! Hates it!

A snow flake landed on her nose once. There she was, jumping around - screaming Yikes! Yikes! Ow! Ow! Oy.

So she hauls the poor thing's ass across the country twice a year, every year. back and forth - back and forth. Can't understand why he doesn't like it. She gave him a dog biscuit.

Now we are being appealed to. Help me get Elliott a crate to fly. So I can drug him and stick him in a cargo hold to freeze. Nope! No crate for Elliot.

One Who Cares

Dr. Ruth formally known as Viking Jen said...

hahaha, one who cares is too funny and oh so true... No cargo, if you are going to take him on a plane then but I seat for him, you can't? they won't let you? Well then you go in cargo with him or move to a place where there is no snow, Miami maybe? Dallas we have like 2 days of snow a year, want to come down here? we have from end of May till end of October of perfect weather (ok 2 months of 104 degrees but is better than snow and wind and shlep you dog twice a year in a small crate. Oh and may I add than in Dallas we still wear t-shirts in December, is just January, February and March that are kind of cold. Oh and there are single mature men here also. But you insist in CA or IL and not TX, oh well... Elliot wants Texas. Come to Texas, everthing is big, icluding crates for dogs.