With a dog you get to different places than without. Parks and groves that you didn’t know existed, and that you didn’t want to know before. The word ‘off-leash area’ enters your vocabulary, and you start planning outings based on your dog’s recreational needs.
This is especially true for holidays. If you check ‘pets’ at Booking.com, you will immediately see the providers who do not want a moulting and gnawing stink bug in their house to disappear. What’s left will be your vacation. A car holiday of course; I’m not overly flighty, but I draw the line on a pet plane ticket.
My car didn’t like Cosmo riding. He demonstrated this by suddenly faltering and coughing in the French hills (the car, not the dog). I called my garage man, who said it was probably nothing serious and that I could overcome it by lowering a gear uphill (and learning that there are usually four yellow posts in the guardrail at the lowest point of the valley – useful if you want to switch back). But the message was clear. My car, which had never had cures, did not like the dog.
Cosmo, however, loved the car. We had been afraid it would be pathetic to force him on such long drives, but after each stop he couldn’t wait to jump back into the car. Understandable from his point of view, because he is the kind that likes to have the whole pack together. As soon as the party splits up, he starts pulling and beeping. It’s a garbage can, but the word ‘shepherd’ suddenly takes on meaning with this behavior.
In the car, Cosmo sat comfortably in the pack, in the backseat between the kids, with his head on the center console, blocking the air conditioner in the back and keeping him cool. It also allowed him to tuck his wet nose nicely into my elbow, and at times I would suddenly feel a heavy head rest on my shoulder, and he blew a deep sigh of pleasure into my ear.
The pet-friendly hotels we visited were different from what we were used to. In a word: elderly. No rooftop bars or swimming pools, but a bowl of water at your dining table and a large, green garden. And above all: other dog owners, so no nagging or disapproving looks.
We also got to know the French themselves in a new way. The cliché has it that they are relaxed fliers, but when it comes to dogs, they proved stricter than the most bourgeois German. You can be on a lonely, bare mountain, as soon as one French lady thinks she can see your dog in the distance, she starts moaning, gesturing and cursing that the animal must be on a leash, and in fact that dogs are only allowed on Tuesdays. are allowed on the mountain between half past ten and a quarter to three.
Other rules of conduct also applied to French dogs: it turned out that you were not supposed to pet them at all, the owners looked at that in horror. Or worse, Cosmo started sniffing it. Suspicious looks, yanking on the leash, warning cries.
Cosmo was all sausage. He had a great holiday, and has let it be known that he wants to make a long journey by car again as soon as possible.