[Dailydrool] (no subject)

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

We've just returned from a week's holiday in the mountains of  
northeast Georgia with our Elsinore and young Charlie, who've decided  
they could happily spend their entire lives hiking in that area's  
state parks. Oh, but they had a good time trudging through the fallen  
leaves and following the scent of all the wildlife that has wandered  
around on the forest floor! Elsinore in particular just radiated joy  
on these walks, which made me feel so happy that we were giving her  
that experience and at the same time so guilty that we couldn't do it  
for her all the time.

We stayed at Ken's parents' timeshare near Clarksville, and  
fortunately the timeshare people had no trouble with us having the  
dogs there. They also had no trouble with charging us a nonrefundable  
$75-per-pet fee. That really annoyed me because people with shrill,  
runny-nosed, grubby-handed, unsupervised children clutching uncapped  
magic markers in their little fists are welcomed with open arms and  
no fees. But quiet, clean, well-behaved, closely watched, picked-up- 
after, leashed dogs are charged a fee whether they damage anything or  
not.

This greatly offends my sense of justice. Plus, when traveling with  
our dogs, I pride myself on always leaving an establishment looking  
as if no dogs have ever stepped foot in it. We take a cover for the  
sofa, crates, towels for wet feet, and poop bags. We keep the dogs on  
flea medications, brushed, and in good health. We bathe the dogs  
before each trip. We never leave them alone in the motel room or  
timeshare unit, so there's never any chance of persistent howling or  
chewing up of furniture. We always clean up after them outside. If my  
hounds drooled, then I'd be wiping down the walls before we left.  
When a family with young children leaves a motel room, you sure know  
young children were staying in that room. But when we leave, you'd  
never our Elsinore and young Charlie had been in it. Yet we have to  
pay a fee that often isn't returned.

In the evaluation the timeshare place asked us to fill out at the  
end, I suggested they make the pet fee refundable if no damage has  
been done. Otherwise, I told them, there's absolutely no reward or  
incentive for good behavior. If we're not going to get that fee back,  
we might as well let the dogs do $150 worth of damage and thus get  
our money's worth out of it. Except that it's much too important to  
me that I prove my point every time--that *my* dogs are *good* guests.

Early on during our stay, the timeshare offered us $100 if we'd sit  
through one of their sales pitches. We decided to do it in order to  
recoup two-thirds of that nonrefundable pet fee. I can stomach a  
nonrefundable pet fee of $50 much better than one of $150. The woman  
we spoke with first had a photo of a Jack Russell Terrier on her  
desk, so we talked about dogs for a few minutes. She wanted to know  
what kind we had, and when we said "basset," she immediately had a  
basset in her past to tell us a story about. It's funny how so many  
people have had bassets long ago, and I now expect to hear about it  
as soon as I say what my dogs are.

This woman's basset was found as a stray in the Chattahoochee  
National Forest. Her husband brought the dog home. When they took her  
to the vet to be spayed, the vet said the basset was about 14--and in  
heat. Is that even possible? To be still be going into heat at the  
age of 14???? After the vet spayed the dog he said that being able to  
look inside the dog during the spay had enabled him to get a better  
feel for the dog's age, and he'd put it at closer to 16. Good  
heavens! And then this woman said her basset lived for another six  
years! It's a tale that seems too incredible to be believed, and  
yet..... Either way, however, it didn't sway us toward buying into a  
timeshare.

I'm not sure how happy Elsinore and Charlie are to be home again.  
They really, really enjoyed their vacation. They were taken on hikes  
on fragrant mountain trails almost every day, and they sat in the sun  
on the patio and watched cows in a neighboring field almost every  
morning. Young Charlie sometimes had to come inside because the cow  
watching got so exciting. They'd move, and then he'd have to growl at  
them until he was in danger of getting much too worked up over them.

Now we're all home, where the most interesting thing that happens is  
the stray cat that walks along the top of the backyard fence twice a  
day. But life is not without hope and good things to anticipate. In  
another week Elsinore and Charlie will get to go to the doggie  
daycare they love while we travel to Indiana to spend Thanksgiving  
with Ken's family. We're going to stay with his aunt, who doesn't  
want dogs in her house. Not even highly supervised, very well- 
behaved, and exceptionally obedient bassets. Now if we had a cranky  
toddler with perpetually sticky hands and a streaming head cold, it'd  
be a whole different story. But quiet, pleasant, clean dogs? Not in  
her house! Ah, well. We love her anyway. Sort of.

Elizabeth