Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Are you forgetting something?

Our beach day on Sunday was almost a disaster.  When we were just a few blocks away from the park, we realized we had forgotten to bring the pugs’ leashes.  I know.  How on earth could we forget their leashes?  It was one of those, I thought you grabbed the leashes, I didn’t get them because I thought you grabbed them moments.  At that point, it really didn’t matter how we managed to leave the house without any leashes for the pugs.  We were just a few blocks away from our destination and there were 3 pugs in the back seat that knew exactly where we were and exactly where we were going.  They were pacing the back seat in excitement and there was no way I would be able to turn back now without them going nuts.

So we quickly ran through all the ways to get four excited pugs across a parking lot and down a trail to the back corner of the beach without any leashes.  We were pressed for time because we knew that as soon as we reached the parking lot the 3 pugs in the back seat were going to erupt with barks of joy and they would not wait while we formulated a game plan.  So we hastily decided that we would carry Sol and walk the other 3 using their seatbelts.

It worked, but take a second to picture 3 very excited pugs being walked on 18 inch seatbelts.  It really gives new meaning to the term “short leash”.  The poor pugs were pulling so hard that about halfway through our journey, I just dropped the seatbelts and exclaimed, “just don’t get in any trouble!”  With their seatbelts dragging in the sand, Benjamin, Henry & Luna trotted off to the faraway section of the beach where they usually play.

Once we arrived at the beach, they ran and played and had a great time.  While they were romping in the sand, we were devising a way to get them back to the car without any leashes.  We took an inventory of the items we had with us and we decided to make use of our most abundant item - poopy bags.  We use newspaper sleeves to pick up poop on walks and since Benjamin is known to poop at least a 100 times while out on a walk we always have a ridiculous amount of poopy bags with us.  So we started tying the newspaper sleeves together and created makeshift leashes for the pugs.  We tied the poopy bags to their harnesses and walked them back to the car without incident.  For the pugs, though, I’m not sure what was worse, walking on an 18 inch seatbelt leash or walking on a leash made out of poopy bags.  I’m sure both are equally emotional damaging moments.