Such a Good Dog.. more in the Eight Legs and a Tail Series

 In my last post, I called out my traveling companion, aka the rule following, closer-upper, driver/husband.  See previous post- "My Husband is Driving me Mad".

In this post, I am going to sing the praises of my other traveling companion, my dog, Smooch.  Fair warning.  If you are not a dog lover you might as well stop reading right now, as I'm going to talk about my extraordinary dog and how much I love her. 

What is better than a traveling companion that never complains, is always up for a good meal, will take any chance to make friends with strangers and likes to end the day with a good smooch and a cuddle.  That's my girl, Smooch.  She will turn six next week and still has the very best combination of qualities in a dog- lots of playful exhuberance, and also the ability to just chill for hours, sometimes even days if the situation requires.  In addition to her many charms she has serious skills.  She is a stage manager, a camp counselor and we have almost completed her training to be a therapy dog. Heck, she's even written her own blog.

We will have driven nearly 5000 miles on this road trip. We have stayed in all manor of campgrounds.  Sometimes our sites have been spacious and sometimes, pretty darn tight.  Today, at our last stop of the trip, we are right next to a beautiful creek. Is there anything more fun for a labrador retriever than being next to a body of water with fish in it no less?  In every campsite, we have let off steam by throwing our bright orange chuck-it ball so that Smooch can do her "retriever" thing.  This will entertain her endlessly.  But today probably takes the prize for a lab friendly camp site.

 For much of our trip we were in Denver visiting our daughter and her adorable children.  Smooch got her training with the first grandchild three years ago when I drove out to Denver and stayed for a couple of months to help after Mabel was born.  She proved then, as now, that she loves babies. There is nothing that will rufffle her- not a climbing, poking, hair-pulling baby, nor a rambunctious, almost four year old who will climb on her and rough her up.  No, this dog is the model of unflappable.  In my humble opinion, all babies should grow up with a dog like this

At every turn in the trip, I have hugged her and kissed her and told her that she is "such a good dog". I have done my best to provide her with a great dog life- (remember my off-leash philosophy?)  We visit our friends in the dog park as often as we can (shout out to the Kilowatt gang!) And we have a collection of boyfriends in different places-  Finn in Center Sandwich, Ripley in Ipswich, Ollie right in Thetford and of course her relatively new cousin, Bagel, who she is quite taken with.  Smooch is a dog who loves babies, people and other dogs.  I guess she's kind of like me. The only thing she doesn't do is sing and dance, but there's always time for new tricks. We often anthropomorphize our dogs.  And why not?  We couldn't love them anymore, even if they were special people in our lives.  They are the best kind of family.  I'll take mine on a road trip to anywhere, just about any time.