Act 24: One Full Tent

Since the first road trip/vacation with the dogs went so well this summer, Steve and I decided to take them camping with us. We were going with two friends from college and their beagle, Ruby. Then they invited a few of their friends and their friends brought two dogs as well. So on two campsites we had 7 people and 5 dogs. That’s kind of a lot! Luckily the capsites we had were tucked away against a border of trees/tall grass so we didn’t have other campers on all sides of us. And the campground itself was extremely dog-friendly. I’ve never seen so many animals camping!
We brought what seemed like a ton of stuff, mostly because of the dogs. Traveling with dogs has to be close to traveling with small children for the amount of packing they require. Food, treats, toys, poop bags, leashes, stake, etc. We brought short leashes for walking and long leashes for staking them in the campsite. We have a stake that twists into the ground and 22 foot long leashes (they’re actually horse lunge lines I bought at Farm & Fleet) and they work great. For most of the time the first day, Dean and Satchmo were off leash. They did a pretty good job of sticking close to us, with Satch naturally wandering farther than Dean. We still had to keep our eyes on them. Satch got put back on the long leash that evening because he wandered over to another campsite. They had their dogs tied up and told us we really should too, even though Satch didn’t really bother them at all. Oh well. Dean wandered to another campsite as well but the people there were much cooler and seemed to love playing with him. No harm, no foul I guess… just depends on the neighbors.

All the dogs got along pretty well. There was a giant mutt (had to have some shepherd and probably Great Dane in it) that was a bit more aggressive so we was watched pretty closely and a hyperactive Boxer that always wanted to play. They all had a good time together. We had a campfire that night and made dogs, burgers, and smores, had a few beers and played some fun games.

I was a little nervous about Steve, me, and the 2 dogs sleeping in the tent together but it went much better than I anticipated. It took a few minutes to get situated but when everyone stopped moving, it was pretty comfortable. Satch was at the edge of the tent, as far away from everything else as possible because he was cooler that way. Dean curled up right between us at the bottom of the tent by our feet. He’s a doll to sleep with. Never moves around… just curls into a ball and keeps your legs toasty warm 

The next morning there was a little…incident… with Satch not wanting to go back on the long leash, so unfortunately Steve had to deal with that. Satch through quite the temper tantrum and it kind of soured the beginning of the day. There were games of lawn golf and Frisbee to wear out both people and pups and a couple of long walks through the campgrounds and by the beach. By that evening it was time to pack up and head home before it got dark. The pups slept like logs in the back seat of the car, all curled up together cute as can be. At least we found one more surefire way to wear them out!