HeiBlog

What was going to be one adventure changed into another. I became the dog handler for my friend’s wedding. The things I do for my friends.

The original plan was for two guys to hike our friend’s dogs up a mountain for her wedding. The chapel at Stowe, VT is about half way up he mountain. Everybody else was going to ski down to the chapel. Plans changed and the ceremony ended up being at the top of the mountain and he dogs were not allowed on the gondola or in the lodge. Also the other handler got sick and couldn’t make it to the wedding. So my job changed.

The job was simple, go get the dogs for the wedding pictures from the dogie daycare place, wait, and take them back. The first bit was that the daycare was about 20 minutes away from the hotel over snowy roads. They weren’t too bad, but having an automatic Chevy Aveo was not the best choice of a vehicle for those conditions. The car was a piece of shit, but then again I’d driven the basically the same car for the last 15 years in all sorts of conditions and I wasn’t too concerned. I was worried about being on the road with two full grown Labs in a small car. Especially the black one Ubu, who can be a bit of a spaz.

The directions to the daycare location were basically look for the red barn about 4-5 minutes after you turn off the main road. I really didn’t know what to expect except that it was a farm. It ends up that all of the dogs are kept in the farmhouse, a small 4-5 room deal. I walked into the mud room (aka dog anti-chamber) and was greeted by dogs jumping up at the doors on my left and in front of me (a while bunch of dog related crap was piled up on the right). I look in and see at least 3 rooms. The place is a complete wrack, not dangerous or anything, just a royal mess. The dogs were everywhere. The proprietors even had trashed sofas for the dogs to sit on. In all there must have been something like 20 odd dogs.

At first I was a bit appalled at the conditions. But, then I saw that the dogs were loving the situation. They had other dogs to play with and could do anything they wanted to. If the only thing that I was worried about was that people might actually try to live in the house. There were enough things in place to make me think that they did. Looking at the place’s website they claim “Unique Dog Boarding in Beautiful Vermont!” and that they have a “warm homey farmhouse atmosphere.” Both statements are true.

There was a guy inside settling an argument between two dogs. Basically he just separated them and lead the one dog outside into a fenced-in area. When he came back he looked a calendar, marked something down and came over to the door to help me. I asked for Cara and Ubu. He came back in about 3 minutes with the dogs and helped me load them in the car, sans leashes by the way.

Ubu and Cara are sisters and have completely different temperaments. Ubu is the dumb and spastic one and Cara is the quiet, smart one. During the drive back Ubu had her front paw on my shoulder and was licking my ear while Cara was laying down in the back of the car. Eventually Ubu felt more secure and curled up next to Cara.

We finally get back to the lodge and I have to leave the girls in the car while I find the bride and groom. They were behind schedule, so I went back to the car. So the dogs didn’t get to riled up I sat in the car with them. Ubu decided that it would be a good idea to sit on my lap while I was in the front seat. I cracked the windows so they could poke their heads out and get some free attention from passersby. Cara was well behaved in the back just sitting with here head on the window. By this time the whole car was covered in dog hair, but hell it was a rental.

The girls had there pictures taken and I dropped the girls off back at the daycare. Still no leaches, but I didn’t need them. They just followed the guy inside like nothing had happened. They didn’t even say good bye. No worries, I’ll seem them again at some point.