What I did on my Summer Non-Vacation, Trip #3: Long Island, New York.

I got back from Portland around midnight Thursday morning, and by 5A Saturday, we were on our way on another trip.  This time we were heading to Long Island for my friend Karla's wedding.


I love going to New York.  Anywhere on to the Eastern side of the state feels like going home.  Getting to see college friends made it that much better.


This trip was different than any other one we've taken: it was the first one that we've gone on without Alice.  We debated for a few weeks how we were going to handle it.  At first, we thought about taking her over to Fur-Get Me Not, one of our neighborhood boarders/dog schools (it's where Alice went to school).  They do an open-cage kennel, and I even took her to "audition"-- they have dogs spend about 15-20 minutes in their kennel to see how they react to the other dogs in their daycare.  Alice passed with flying colors.  Well, she actually just stood there, watching the other dogs play.  She didn't move the entire time-- which gave their staff a pretty good laugh.


When we started thinking about when we'd leave and when we'd get back in accordance to their office hours, we realized that our one-night trip would result in Alice being boarded three nights.  That was way too long to be sans puggle.  So we opted instead for Fur-Get Me Not's in-home pet sitting.


In short, it was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.  Our sitter's name was Jennifer, and I absolutely love her.  More importantly, Alice loved her.  Jennifer called when she got there, sent me text messages throughout the night and next morning to let me know how she was doing, and wrote up a little report card when she left.  One message Jennifer sent was that she and Alice had been playing and she was giving lots of kisses.  Alice doesn't kiss just anyone-- her list is pretty short (only about four people).  So I figured if Alice was kissing her, things were going well.


I had a feeling that I was more upset about leaving Alice than Alice would've been about us leaving, but I didn't know just how true it was until we got home.  We got back home and let Alice out of her cage... and she walked out.  


Alice doesn't walk.  Alice tears out, runs in circles, jumps up and launches herself off our stomachs, runs away to find a toy, and does more laps around the house at hyper speed, chirping the whole way.  We can be gone all day or gone for 30 seconds taking out the garbage, it's all the same.  But no.  Alice walked out of her cage and said "Oh hey, hoomies.  Nice to see you again.  Can I have a treat?"  That was it.  Meanwhile, I was running in circles, happy to see our little dog again.  Go figure.


I love traveling with Alice and will continue to do it more often than not, but it's so great to know that we have options that not only make us comfortable leaving her, but also with whom Alice can thrive.