Road trip yay, Pt. 2
Sep. 26th, 2006 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikistitch....Travels with Thunder
Let us now properly intoduce Thunder Doggie. Thunder is a Great Dane. This breed, according to Uncle Shan, had its origins with medieval Germanic peoples, who wanted dogs of sufficient size and aggression to scare the beejeesus out of any opposing armies. Thunder may lack, for the most part, his progenitor's temperament (his preferred weapon of choice being instead spreading copious amounts of drool on friend and foe), but he exceeds them in size, weighing in at 170 lbs, and standing tall enough on two legs to set his paws easily on our uncle's shoulders. He remains, at heart, a lap dog, as we observed during quiet mornings at Jyl's house, when he sat his fuzzy doggie butt most contentedly in Uncle Shan's lap whilst our uncle, seemingly unawares, prepared for work.
Aunt Jyl is a true believer in the broadening effect of travel, so that we had barely unpacked our bags before she had whisked us off to view one of the local landmarks.
Er, no, not Toby's the other local landmark....
We were off to Libby, to see the Kootenai River and...
...um, the "swinging bridge?" This does not sound like a tiki-friendly location! It soon developed that a previous outing to this location, involving some smaller cousins and loyal Thunder, had produced a situation in which Aunt Jyl had been the only member of the party interested in crossing aforesaid shaky and terrifying structure.
We were told not to worry, and meanwhile, Aunt Jyl concentrated on hurrying 170 lbs of canine down a long metal staircase latticed with paw-grabbing spikes.
We should interject, traveling with Thunder is like being in a genuine celebrity entourage, as we were stopped nearly every 20 yards by yet another party demanding to know things like "Is that a dog?" and "Can I ride him?" and "How much does he eat?" (When we were asked, for the third or fourth time, the latter question by a woman who outweighed Thunder by more than a few kilograms, we were much tempted to rejoinder, "Two cups in the morning, and two in the evening. How much do YOU eat?")
"Wait!" said Mr. Tiki. "I see it!"
Um....... We wondered if this was some kind of Amazing Race trick where the partner who's afraid of heights has to brave bungee jumping into a teaspoon of seltzer water.
"Don't worry," assure Mr. Tiki. "When you get to the middle, I'll start jumping up and down on the end!"
Here, then, is photographic proof that Tiki did indeed make it over the bridge, yay!
Persuading 12 stone of canine to hasten across was, however, another matter.
And so, after a bit of calling and cajoling, and not a little bit of pushing, our adventure concluded, with our newfound furry friend none the worse for wear. The next evening, we stopped at WalMart and, as a token of a job well done, bought the largest rawhide chew bone we could find. When we presented it to Thunder, the dog immediately sealed it into his huge mouth and scampered off, as much as a 170-lb being could be said to scamper, in an increasingly frenetic dance of bone bliss, around and around and around the porch. Before we all succumbed to motion sickness from watching the spinning dog, Uncle Shan let the beast inside the house, where he proceeded to take the next few hours to gnaw the once thighbone-sized rawhide chewie into a a fist-size lump of mixed hide and Great Dane slobber, which he proudly deposited into each of his human friends' laps the following morning. Realization: chew bone = Great Dane crack!
Let us now properly intoduce Thunder Doggie. Thunder is a Great Dane. This breed, according to Uncle Shan, had its origins with medieval Germanic peoples, who wanted dogs of sufficient size and aggression to scare the beejeesus out of any opposing armies. Thunder may lack, for the most part, his progenitor's temperament (his preferred weapon of choice being instead spreading copious amounts of drool on friend and foe), but he exceeds them in size, weighing in at 170 lbs, and standing tall enough on two legs to set his paws easily on our uncle's shoulders. He remains, at heart, a lap dog, as we observed during quiet mornings at Jyl's house, when he sat his fuzzy doggie butt most contentedly in Uncle Shan's lap whilst our uncle, seemingly unawares, prepared for work.
Aunt Jyl is a true believer in the broadening effect of travel, so that we had barely unpacked our bags before she had whisked us off to view one of the local landmarks.
Er, no, not Toby's the other local landmark....
We were off to Libby, to see the Kootenai River and...
...um, the "swinging bridge?" This does not sound like a tiki-friendly location! It soon developed that a previous outing to this location, involving some smaller cousins and loyal Thunder, had produced a situation in which Aunt Jyl had been the only member of the party interested in crossing aforesaid shaky and terrifying structure.
We were told not to worry, and meanwhile, Aunt Jyl concentrated on hurrying 170 lbs of canine down a long metal staircase latticed with paw-grabbing spikes.
We should interject, traveling with Thunder is like being in a genuine celebrity entourage, as we were stopped nearly every 20 yards by yet another party demanding to know things like "Is that a dog?" and "Can I ride him?" and "How much does he eat?" (When we were asked, for the third or fourth time, the latter question by a woman who outweighed Thunder by more than a few kilograms, we were much tempted to rejoinder, "Two cups in the morning, and two in the evening. How much do YOU eat?")
"Wait!" said Mr. Tiki. "I see it!"
Um....... We wondered if this was some kind of Amazing Race trick where the partner who's afraid of heights has to brave bungee jumping into a teaspoon of seltzer water.
"Don't worry," assure Mr. Tiki. "When you get to the middle, I'll start jumping up and down on the end!"
Here, then, is photographic proof that Tiki did indeed make it over the bridge, yay!
Persuading 12 stone of canine to hasten across was, however, another matter.
And so, after a bit of calling and cajoling, and not a little bit of pushing, our adventure concluded, with our newfound furry friend none the worse for wear. The next evening, we stopped at WalMart and, as a token of a job well done, bought the largest rawhide chew bone we could find. When we presented it to Thunder, the dog immediately sealed it into his huge mouth and scampered off, as much as a 170-lb being could be said to scamper, in an increasingly frenetic dance of bone bliss, around and around and around the porch. Before we all succumbed to motion sickness from watching the spinning dog, Uncle Shan let the beast inside the house, where he proceeded to take the next few hours to gnaw the once thighbone-sized rawhide chewie into a a fist-size lump of mixed hide and Great Dane slobber, which he proudly deposited into each of his human friends' laps the following morning. Realization: chew bone = Great Dane crack!
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Date: 2006-09-27 12:04 pm (UTC)But waow... That swinging bridge looks like something out of Indiana Jones !
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Date: 2006-09-27 12:48 pm (UTC)Never in a million years could anyone get me to cross that Swinging Bridge, unless my life depended on it (and even then I'd considered whether dying wasn't the worst option.)
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Date: 2006-09-27 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:24 pm (UTC)When Thunder growls, by the way, it sounds like a freight train.
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Date: 2006-09-27 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 02:24 pm (UTC)terrified of the dog though.. (not his fault) thank you for sharing your day!!! *hugs* to the Tikis!!!
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Date: 2006-09-27 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 09:29 pm (UTC)Many years ago, I worked a performance of "6 Rooms River View" with a Great Dane named Pepper. Sweetest dog ever. She could look me eye to eye standing on all four feet. Amazingly, being on stage, in front of a live audience didn't phaze her.