A few years ago I found myself traveling from New Orleans to New York in my funky, beat-up Toyota Tercel hatchback. My trusty traveling companions were a black Labrador puppy named Elvis that I had found eating roadkill just outside Memphis, and Lulu, a dachshund/beagle mix who was just under a year old at the time.
They were content to ride in the back seat as we putted along the small, poorly paved roads of the Southern United States. Fate, better known as my own personal curiosity, led us to Tybee Island, a small resort town near Savannah. Tybee Island is a summertime resort town, so in the month of October, it was only locals.
I checked in to my hotel with the dogs and inquired at the reception desk as to a place to eat. The woman gave the number for a pizza place. I called and was told that they were backed up so my order would take an hour and a half. And it would have to be an extra large to meet the minimum order requirements. Fine.
By the time my pizza arrived, I was ravenous. I put the box down on the bed and shoed Elvis away from it. I opened it up, my mouth watering. Lulu, in her puppy-driven enthusiasm, tried to see what was going on. She put her little short dachshund legs up on the side of the bed but couldn’t quite reach her nose over the edge. She got back down and walked away. I turned my back for a second to open my soda.
In the few seconds it took to open my soda, Lulu jumps up on the other bed, runs across it and takes a flying leap across the space between the two beds. She lands, feet first, directly on top of the pizza. Sliding across the pizza like a bobsled on a steep hill, she hits the edge of the box on the other side and lands, face first in the bed.
As I look over, horrified at the doggie treadmarks that are now dug into my dinner, I hear “Arr, arr, arrrr!” in a whiny puppy voice. Lulu is madly licking off all the cheese that is now burning her paws.
Serves you right, devil dog.
I scrape off the rest of the cheese, go back to my pizza and salvage the remaining slices.
This guest post was written by Sarah Blakemore, who also writes for Pets Adviser.
(No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post)
