Days Two and Three: Coco Gets Crazier

So far I've done better at getting video up at YouTube than blogging here; but then, Tam and Sarah's intents to blog haven't produced a post yet. So let me catch up a bit. The videos are at YouTube, though the most video-ready moments of the trip have been missed, the bear cub I mentioned on day one, and another bear-related story for later in this post.

Yesterday, day two, was the second day of travel down, and again mostly engaged in burning miles. When we weren't on the Interstates however, Sarah began to understand the appeal (and variety) of old roads, as we went through the towns of Southwest Virginia, ranging from industrial and railroad towns that were long strips of trailer parks with double-wides, to charming towns like Abingdon, where the State Theater of Virginia is located and there's a flourishing artistic community. Otherwise we cut across northeastern Tennessee via the Tri-Cities and the new (well, we first used it two years ago, so still new to us) I-16, down to Asheville.

It was a nice hotel, a Comfort Suites, and dog-friendly as well. But we've discovered that many pet-friendly places put all the pet rooms in a single corridor. In Asheville, as in Roanoke, there was a dog in the room across the hall. Actually, in Asheville apparently two, crated, and while never actually seen, clearly of the small, shrill, yippy persuasion. When they started out, Coco responded with wild barking and a furious attempt to go through the door. Fortunately the desk clerk actually found this amusing, but I think he was off duty when it started up again around dawn. Tam and I thought we were off-duty too, being sound asleep, until our dachshund went off.

Now, this was not the first problem of the day. In the afternoon, Sarah wanted to swim in the pool and since the night before we'd had no time and the next few days would be poolless, we decided Tam would watch her while I either stayed with the dog in the room , or walked him outside. We tried the latter first, but when he saw them going to the pool but me pulling him the other way he started barking, leaping about madly, and trying to bite through his leash.

You see, Coco tolerates me. He understands that during the school year, I'm home on Fridays and no one else is, so I'm his sofa/food source, but when either Sarah or Tam is available, I'm dog food. He's a ladies' dog; I'm the only adult male he doesn't act like he wants to dismember, and he's not much better with males Sarah's age. We think his bark is worse than his bite, but don't plan to test it.

As for other dogs, forget it. Though we met Coco at an adoption fair where he was around a lot of other dogs, as he was at his (brief) foster home, he has challenged other dogs at every opportunity, not just on his home turf but in public places. At the vet's to get checked out for the trip he tried to go after a Rottweiler; once at Great Falls he tried to go after a pair of mastiffs; he's also confronted a German Shepherd. That any of these dogs could snap him in two with one bite seems to elude him; dachshunds, or at least Coco, seem unaware that they're five inches tall. Of course, they were bred to go after European badgers, so perhaps foolhardy courage against impossible odds is in their DNA.

We've already decided we need to get him a chain-based leash. Two of the three we brought on vacation are partly chewed through by day three.

But this maniacal hound of hell is not the homebound Coco. He's a sweet, loving, totally loyal ultimate cuteness, so long as no other dogs, or adult males other than me, or most females for that matter, enter his field of vision. (My physical therapist after my surgery came to our house three times a week for three weeks and he went berserk every time.)

Of course, we decided to get him obedience training. We even paid for the course. Then I broke my hip.

Anyway, we need to keep him fairly sequestered, so logistics are a problem. Day three (today if I post this by midnight: anyway, Monday, August 23, was spent mostly in Cherokee, NC. I'll post more on it later, though, except for this one story alluded to earlier: our second missed video moment. Sarah and I were shopping while Tam had Coco duty; we'd just switched shifts She was walking him when they came upon one of many bear sculptures in Cherokee (like a number of places they encourage artists to address a common theme: Norfolk does mermaids, Winchester, apples, and Cherokee, bears.

Well, as Tam tells it (I hope she'll tell it herself here), Coco saw one of these bear statues, and started barking and growling at it, all the while with his tail between his legs. He wasn't, apparently, trying to attack this bigger challenger.

But what kind of hound dog doesn't know a statue from a real animal?

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