A Trip With Mocha

I mentioned in a previous post that we had found a sweet place to relax not so far from our home, so we decided to take advantage of that again, this time with Mocha. There were pros and cons about this, as I am sure all dog owners would agree.

Pros:

• Could do things as a 'family' and go to a place that we all would like
• Could enjoy the forest area and get some good exercise for all
• Could get Mocha used to new environments and people
• At least we did not have to clean up his mess in the woods (rather, just get it off the path)
  

There are some cons, however::

• A medium sized active dog in a small car is frustrating for all
• Most animals like to explore the forest and keep going, rather than stopping here and there to 'absorb the good feelings'
• We did not want to let him off the lease since many people are scared of (what they think of as a) big dog, so he was not free to run around
• We did indeed have to clean up any mess during transportation.....

Basically, even though Mocha is fairly well trained, driving up with him - for even that short distance - was frustrating for all. At one point, I had opened the windows a little to let him look out and feel the breeze. I noticed that the window was down more than I wanted so I pressed it to go up a bit. This happened about 10 times and Jo said in a clear way to just open it or close it. I did not want to open it for fear of him jumping out, but Jo said very clearly that he would not. So I left it open and within 1 minute Mocha jumped out of our car window going along a tight mountain road.

Sigh.

Thankfully, I had though about this and had leased him to my locked seatbelt, so when I say he jumped out, that is true, but as he jumped, the lease tightened and then he hung by the side of the car until we stopped and pulled over (which was almost immediate). We were all pissed at each other, and it was evident that Mocha was pissed since there were yellow drops on the side of the car where he was hanging.....

That was the start of our journey, so that did not make a great impression, but we did finally get to the place to walk around and that was fine, except by this time, Jo had a pretty serious headache and Mocha's energy had to be released in the form of fast walking through the forest, which - in my mind - kinda defeats the purpose of going to 'relax.'

But it all worked out and we made it back. On the way back, we kept the windows UP!!! this time and Mocha seemed to sense that things were on thin ice, so he did what he usually does as a defence mechanism: he looks damn cute. As I was driving back, he put his head on my shoulder for 2-3 minutes at a time and ... ok, I have to admit, we could not stay frustrated any more....

Here are some of those pics (since we were not in the mood to take many pics before!)


So we will reevaluate any trip taking with Mocha from now on and weigh the pros and cons.....hmmmm, I wonder which side will win?

Jeff & Jo and Mocha!