Originally posted on August 2, 2018.
This is the tail tale of Lulu’s Ballroom Adventure. Shortly after Lulu wedged herself my heart (which was about a minute after she came to live with us) my husband (let’s call him The Dancing Doc) and I (a.k.a. The Dancing Housewife) danced in a local one day ballroom competition. [RELATED POST: The Story of the Dancing Housewife and the Dancing Doc]
As luck would have it the competition was being held in a pet friendly hotel so rather than torturing some poor unsuspecting dog sitter (Lulu suffers from separation anxiety…more on this later) for an entire weekend, we threw caution to the wind and decided to bring her with us.
We packed up Lulu along with all her stuff – a crate, a large (ugly) home-made-from-scrap-yarn afghan to which she had become curiously attached, food, treats, dental chews, toys, bowls, leash, poop bags, anti-anxiety supplements and the piece de resistance of anxious puppy accoutrements… a calming pheromone diffuser (yes there is such a thing) – and off we went.
We checked into the hotel on the eve of the competition and promptly executed a trial run of our plan to leave our Lulu safely crated in our hotel room during the next day’s competition. The optimal plan included one of us (translation: The Dancing Doc) running back to the room during dance lulls in order to accommodate Lulu’s bathroom needs or just to give her a reassuring pat on the head. In theory this was perfectly viable. In practice…not so much.
At first she appeared to settle nicely into her crate, surrounded by all the familiar stuff we’d dragged from home and comforted by the calming effect triggered by some sort of dog pheromones being diffused throughout the room. However, the moment we walked into the hallway and shut the door behind us, Lulu began to whimper. We waited quietly outside the door, hoping she’d be able to calm herself…HA! In about two nano-seconds, all hell broke loose as her whimpering escalated to howling, the likes of which can only be described as the sound a pack (no not one…a pack) of werewolves makes on the night of a full moon. It became immediately evident our only choice was to take Lulu and her crate with us into the ballroom or end up being evicted from the hotel for disturbing the peace of other hotel guests.
We contemplated scratching from the entire competition, but the competition organizer was on board with Lulu joining us for the day so we decided to give it a whirl. Luckily, since the competition was a local one, our son and lots of friends came to watch us dance, many of whom served as temporary leash-holders each time we took our place on the dance floor. I don’t often quote Hillary Clinton, but it really did take a village to keep Lulu quiet while we danced. Anyway, we are very grateful to all those who helped…you know who you are.
Meanwhile, Lulu’s Ballroom Adventure was a learning experience. The Dancing Doc and I learned Lulu’s first Ballroom Adventure will likely be her last…at least for a little while. I imagine Lulu is probably fine with that and while she wasn’t fine with the ballroom’s loud music, she learned to tolerate it. She learned people can’t resist a cute puppy and making new friends takes very little effort when you are, in fact, a very cute puppy. She learned how to ride in an elevator (but not on an escalator) and she learned you can find a good place to poop just about anywhere you go as long as your humans are willing to find you a little patch of grass. She learned humans don’t get nearly as annoyed when dogs hop on hotel beds as they do when dogs hop on the beds at home (bottom line: never give up hoping or hopping) and perhaps most important of all, Lulu learned she’d forever recognize her human family because no matter how much make-up, fake tanner and fancy clothes with Swarovski crystals they wear, they still smell the same and that’s really all that matters.
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