Bad news

Steve and I woke up in a hotel in Menlo Park Sunday morning to a dreadful noise — the sound of someone licking something. Beverly has never much of a been a licker, but I immediately guessed the sound came from her, cleaning up the start of a discharge from her private parts. She’d looked a big swollen to me the day before, and when we turned on the lights and inspected her, the swelling was more pronounced. A quick swipe with a tissue detected a smear of pale pink. It was subtle but clear to us: her heat at long last had begun.

Even though we’d been braced for it, we reeled at the news. As I wrote about in my last post, she’d been due to begin Advanced Training on Friday, November 3. The start of her heat would force us to take her up to the kennels in Oceanside, which in turn would rob us of our final 10 days with her. Those days are special.

Glumly, we packed up for the long drive back to San Diego, reminding ourselves to be thankful the heat hadn’t started four days earlier. At least we’d been able to enjoy this last lovely road trip together.

The motivation for it was Steve’s reunion with his Bay Area high school class 50 years after their graduation. Thursday Steve, Beverly, and I had driven part of the way, to Paso Robles, where we toured an olive ranch…

…tasted wine, visited friends, and spent the night. The next day we drove north through Carmel, where we kept Beverly on leash even though other dogs were romping free.

She was ready to have sex on the beach. But that would not have been okay with us (or CCI).

At the reunion parties Friday and Saturday nights, Beverly won countless hearts and prompted all manner of folks to talk to Steve and me about their dogs. Beverly enjoyed the petting and was good about posing in photos.

Steve and I also drove into San Francisco Saturday and walked with Beverly for an hour or two.

She got to see cable cars…

 

Chinese dragons…

…and to savor countless intriguing smells.

We also learned together that San Francisco is a city of 1000 street grates. Street grates are one of the things that make Beverly nervous. So we seized upon the excellent training opportunity. Lured with many treats, Beverly notably improved.

She still looked suspicious. But at least she was willing to walk on them. 

Throughout the trip, she was an ideal companion, never intruding, always relieving herself on command, never whining about the long hours in her kennel on the road.

She was joyful to be released from it at the end of the day on Sunday, rushing back into the place that she has come to know as home.

But it’s her home no more. I made the call to CCI Monday, and the rest of Beverly’s adventure with us played out the next day. I’ll briefly report on that tomorrow.