Rich always wanted a dog to take on road trips and vacations. When you are living with all men, it's a lot of work. A month after we adopted Paulie, we pretty much figured out that taking him on vacations were out of the question. Stopping for walks and potty breaks weren't the issue, it was taking him to a pet approved hotel and being around other dogs that was the deal breaker. We talked about trying it once, however, we chickened out. Driving hours away to relax then have to turn around because of dog issues was out of the questioned. It wasn't Paulie's fault. He was the product of bad, previous owners. All we could do was make the best of it and move on and enjoy this little dog.
We have a lot of public parks that are run by the Forestry Preserve District of DuPage County. There's also many old farms from the 1800s that are also managed by the Forestry Preserve. One in particular, Danada Farm which is an Equestrian farm. They have large working horses and holds events throughout the year. One weekend, we decided to take Paulie there for a long walk and enjoy nature. By this time, whenever we put him in the car, he became excited thinking he was going to the vet's. So, I would go sit in the back of the SUV and sing to him, trying to calm him down. Most of the time, this would work and other times, not so much. Upon arriving to the parking lot, we scoped it out, trying to find a spot as far away from everyone else. Paulie wore a collar and harness that connected to a seat belt along with short leash. I also felt like I was saddling him up like a horse with all these gizmos. At this point, we were using a barking collar with remote to train Paulie not to bark excessively. I wasn't crazy about this thing, however, we were open to trying anything. Rich took the reins and I had the remote to the collar. When Paulie got fired up, he was in that zone and nothing was going to stop him from barking. So, timing was everything. As soon as I saw Paulie panting, I hit the button. A little yelp came from him, he shook his body and we moved on. Things were going fine until we approached the corral with horses. Putting Paulie next to a horse was something to see. He was a low rider and when you have a 15 hand horse next to him, no wonder Paulie lost it. He let that horse know who he was! Below is a video of this visit. The horses just kept on eating while Paulie was letting them know he had arrived.
