One of the main reasons we traveled to Slovakia was to take care of Doris the dog, an energetic, intermittently naughty but often charming 6-month old Hungarian Vizsla who chewed everything from stuffed toys to socks and underwear or your arm in a playful kind of way. Her owner Martin had to go to Denver for a month, and so we offered to take care of his house and Doris for the month of September, which ended up being a great window for us to be in Slovakia.
Doris and we got along very well! Doris loved us because we fed her, took her on 5-mile walks every day, played with her almost inexhaustibly, and let her come into our bed in the early morning to snooze for a few hours with us before we all wanted to actually get up. And it was impossible to not love Doris, except for the times when she almost pulled our arms off during walks, barked convulsively at dogs behind gates and hurled herself at small children on their bikes (or anyone else for that matter.) Oh right, and also when she repeatedly brought slobber coated objects to us to play tug-of-war.
And yet, with Chris and I accepting the responsibility to extend Martin’s training routines, Doris began to actually heel walking down dog-filled streets, sit instead of jump, and lurch much less at passersby. And even understand that sometimes we didn’t want to play with her.
While it was fun to take Doris on energetic walks in the woods near Martin’s house, I think Chris’ and my favorite times with Doris was when she was asleep or at least chilled out.
Luckily, Martin’s house in Ivanka was in close proximity to woods and lakes crisscrossed by trails, as well as being fairly close to wooded hills where we could take Doris on longer hikes. Doris often fell immediately to sleep when we got her home, exhausted the walk and from the intense concentration of trying to be good or failing, or both.
In the end, Martin returned and Doris was very happy to see him. But when we left a day later to spend a few days in Prague, Martin reported that Doris sat outside our empty bedroom door and seemed blue. So I guess she had gotten as used to us as we had gotten used to her. When we returned from Prague, we all had dinner in our favorite restaurant, savoring that amazing garlic soup and watching Doris get lots of love from the staff at the restaurant, who know her well. Doris, we miss you!
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