Who Let the Dogs Out?

With all the repair delays to Betsy, it took us a while to get back on the road. So, instead, we spent time looking to add to our pack. We actually took almost as much time to find just the right dog as we did to find the right rig. 

And maybe that’s because there aren’t a lot of Covid dogs out there. We’ve been told that adoptions are way up. YAY! And hopefully those dogs aren’t surrendered when everyone needs to go back to work. 

Welcome Rizzo

Rizzo (named after Betty Rizzo from Grease) finally joined our family on October 18th, 2020. She was rescued from Hope of Deliverance out of Tucson, AZ. Her breed is still to be determined but the best guess is Husky/ Cattle Dog/Border Collie mix. She’s around 2 years old and was rescued by Hope of Deliverance from the Pinal County Shelter.

The First Trip

Our first trip with Rizzo was just a short drive from our North Phoenix home to Tucson, AZ. It’s just about 2.5 hours. We looked at other places to stay but still wanted to enjoy the nice weather without dealing with snow. Tucson was a great choice.

When we originally planned the trip, we still only had Oreo. I had chosen a few activities that humans could do but dogs couldn’t. Oreo, who is so chill that she could cool our refrigerator, wouldn’t be a problem being left in the rig for several hours. 

Rizzo, on the other hand, was a big unknown. We’d only had her for 2.5 weeks. She wasn’t leash trained yet and she was VERY high energy! For all we knew, she’d be left alone in the rig and tear a hole right through the door.

This A Test

I somehow forgot to pack the milk for the trip so Rizzo’s first official test was being left in the rig while we went to a grocery store. We chose to leave the back window open so she could look out. She loves to sit on the seat and see what’s going on in the world and we figured that would give her something to do.

We were gone maybe 30 minutes…

…at most. 

And…

Success! Rizzo did just fine. No damage and no complaints of barking. Jeff snuck up the back ladder to check in on her and she just looked out to say hi.

Who Let the Dogs Out?

My tip of the day is to not take a dog into an RV park when they aren’t leash trained. Leash training is a process and having a dog that has doggie ADHD try to learn these skills when at a new place with lots of new smells is REALLY hard on both the dog and the doggie parents.

Making this even more challenging is that Rizzo, while being completely house broken, doesn’t like to relieve herself while on leash. Take her off leash at the dog park and she immediately runs for a back corner to do her business. We figure she just really likes her privacy. 

That 5 minute walk before bed now becomes a long, drawn out process. Oreo would relieve herself almost immediately upon exiting our area. Rizzo sometimes would not relieve herself at all.

We did have quite a scare one night. Jeff was situating the leash on Rizzo to try to get her to stop pulling. Somehow, she managed to wiggle at just the wrong moment and the collar came right off. She ran off and we started to search. Fortunately, she came right up to me in a few minutes so no big problems there but it was scary for those few minutes.

And then there are those quiet moments when you are settled in after dinner and your favorite pooches are curled up on the floor.

Upon return, Rizzo was promptly enrolled in Doggie Training classes! We don’t want to struggle like this on our next trip in December.