On the road again

A story of Kaytee & Orent traveling... alone!

Orent came on a grand adventure with me today -- to New York City. I had a meeting w/ my boss in Brooklyn, and she's always wanted to meet Orent, so I decided I'd drive and bring him with me.

Orent's been to NYC before, but both times were with a 2nd person to help with doggy socialization. NYC is a scary place for dogs. I mean, the strollers alone are so big, they could crush a small buffalo!

Before we could start our journey, we had to get the car tuned up. Orent came with me to the repair shop (without a vest, because I'd forgotten it, but it was all good with the folks there). He was super patient while all the smells and sounds swirled around him. I was so proud!

Orent at the repair shop... no one even noticed him!

With the car tuned up, we set out on the road. At first, he was a dog who couldn't settle down. That probably stemmed from me having to slam my breaks and him sliding off the seat -- he was belted in, but still! -- and onto the floor. He didn't want to lay down after that shocking experience.

So I gave up getting him to lie down, and just drove. We hit some traffic, and every hard break from then on caused him to wake up and stand up. Poor dog... but I'm sure he'll get over it.

In NYC, we expertly navigated the moms and babies, guys on bikes, construction workers, and the like. We didn't do such a good job navigating puddles. Orent wanted to drink the water so bad! But we persevered, and made it to my boss's apartment.

Orent had a hard time settling down, and we all were hungry, so we figured we'd get lunch at a Yemeni restaurant below her apartment (yep, Yemeni... it was amazingly good!). Shockingly, after a few failed attempts to get my attention, Orent laid down and fell asleep for almost our entire two-hour lunch meeting.

He's lying down, in a restaurant! That's pretty much never happened before

After the meeting, we headed back to the car. One thing Brooklyn lacks is places for dogs to pee! All of their trees are fenced in where we were, so there weren't even little bits of dirt to pee on. So I tried to put the dog between two parked and said "hurry". You won't believe what Orent did! He jumped up over the curb, over the 1' tall fence around the tree, and started peeing next to the tree. But what could I do? I was actually pretty proud of him for jumping, since he's been such a wimp about that of late. And besides... fenced-off trees are dumb. Orent clearly recognized that and decided some rules are just made to be broken!

On the drive home, we stopped and went into a NJ rest stop (the very same one where we took this photo when he was a brand new little squish-face). Those places bustle with seventeen million people at all times of day, so I figured it'd be a good place for Orent to get some socialization. Also, I needed coffee and I certainly wasn't abandoning him in the car. Nothing much to report from this socialization... mostly I'm just documenting it so I remember to include it in the puppy report.

We hit some pretty bad traffic on the way home, but Orent, as usual, was cool as a cucumber... even at 6pm (dinner time!).

Maybe we'll take more "just us" road trips in the future since this one went so well. I still can't believe how relaxed he is about the world. It's actually kind of freaky!

Taken at a red light, don't worry Max!