August 09, 2003
The world's most exhausted dog
8:00 p.m.
It was a real humdinger of a day. It started early-early with Dusty and I getting up around 5:30 so we could do all of our morning things by 8:00. Then, Dusty went in the crate and I hauled some last minute things to the site of the garage sale. I had planned to come back and get her, but things didn't go off as planned.
People were waiting at 8:30 and by 8:45, I was selling stuff. It was like a feeding frenzy and didn't even slow down until noon. I went back to get Dusty and her crate before the afternoon rush started.
For much of the day, Dusty stayed in her crate but she cried and cried. Normally, she's good in her crate, but that house was filled with such a frantic, frenzied energy, strange smells and strange people that I don't think I blame her for being ill-at-ease.
In the late afternoon, it slowed down, so I let her out of the crate for awhile. She pranced around and chewed on toys and was actually pretty good for most of it. Once, I couldn't find her but could hear her whining. She had gone upstairs in the house and become lost. She was so relieved when I came up to find her!
We had one bad-puppy incident. Someone wanted to buy a piece of furniture that was sitting outside so I dashed out to talk to him. As we were discussing it, I heard someone shout my name. Dusty had left the house and was now *sitting* out in the middle of the street (albeit a very quiet street, but *still*) watching me.
If this was a ploy to get my attention it certainly worked. I gave her a tongue lashing and swatted her on the bottom - ineffectual, I know, but I was both angry and frightened. She went into the crate for the rest of the afternoon and didn't make a peep.
I finally let her out as we were cleaning up, but attached her to me with a leash. She hates this nearly as much as the crate. Everytime I sat down to rest, she crawled in my lap, whimpering. My garage-sale-partner (who used to own the house where we had the sale) commented that Dusty was pretty good, considering that she was on strange ground.
Dusty was so exhausted by the time we headed home at 5 o'clock that she could hardly walk. She spent the balance of the evening inventing fabulous new contortions for sleeping. We went for a brief walk, then she went back to sleep. I don't think I've ever seen her this tired.