And you thought dinosaurs were extinct...

After narrowly escaping the live Jurassic Park scene which unfolded in the backseat of the Impala on the way to Kentucky this weekend, it became painfully clear we could not continue traveling with Oscar in the car as carelessly as we had been.

A few weeks ago, I invested in two of the travel harnesses that attach to seatbelts.  These work extremely well... so long as the sun is shining, the planets are aligned, the moon isn't full and pigs are flying.  (Ok, I actually very highly recommend these harnesses as they do keep your dogs secure in the unlikely event of a car accident, but that doesn't make this story fun.   Further, they do not prevent an overgrown crybaby from bouncing around like a bouncy ball on an elastic string in the backseat whilst squealing and barking like a raging lunatic).

Last week, in anticipation of our 8 hour trek to Kentucky, I bought a $30 nylon travel crate from Target hoping that would finally be the answer keep the doodle contained safely.  The crate worked for about $30 worth of time, i.e. long enough to get us about an hour west on I-40... which would have been great, but we had about 7 hours left to go.  Initially he didn't mind being in the crate though the melatonin may have had something to do with that.   But damn if it wasn't raining in Tennessee and Kentucky, (not unlike it has been for approximately the last 40 days and 40 nights).  I knew we should have opted for a boat instead... but I digress.  Anyway, it was far too dangerous to drive without wipers, but beyond just flipping out about those, Oscar was about to cause himself and me an aneurysm at the sound of raindrops bouncing off the windshield.  We tried drowning out the sound (no pun intended) by turning up the radio.  We covered all possible ways for him to see out of the crate with anything we could find - mainly B's clothes... like literally the shirt off his back.  I begged, pleaded and threatened his life to no avail.  The high-pitched whining and barking continued.  

   

On about mile 350 of the trip, Oscar mutated into some creature that very closely resembled a tyrannosaurus and ripped open the mesh side of the crate at the seam, launching his newly developed reptile-like body and very large teeth into the front seat.  And surely not by accident, his grossly long talons ripped open the flesh on my neck... a mere 24 hours before I was to be in a wedding.  It was about this time I also realized he had both puked and peed in the nylon crate.

Fortunately, B managed to quickly rig something up in order to contain the beast in the backseat while we miserably finished the remaining 150 miles of our trip.  And by "rigged something up," I do mean that he essentially collapsed the nylon crate on top of the dog until we reached our destination.  Oops.

By the time we reached my parents' house, T-Rex had mutated back into a cute and snuggly little 'doodle.  But I was not pleased.

As luck would have it, the rain was still falling by the time we were set to head back to NC on Sunday.  Sans nylon crate, we belted Oscar into the backseat and locked the seatbelt.  This worked extremely well... for 20 seconds.  Again, the tyrannosaurus mutation occurred and he was all like "EFF YOU IF YOU THINK I'M GONNA SIT BACK IN THIS SEAT AND LET THOSE BASTARD RAINDROPS VANDALIZE THIS CAR!"  Before we even left the city limits, we were in a Petsmart purchasing a hard, plastic crate with chains and padlocks and horse tranquilizers.  Oscar willingly got into the crate in the backseat and we didn't hear another peep from him until he had to poop somewhere near Asheville, NC.  (He was calm and kind enough to let us know before he actually defecated in the crate this time.)

Anyway, I just want it on the record that this was my idea all along - the hard plastic crate thing - but B was all like, "No, I got this.  He'll be FINE!" because God forbid we spend the $70 for the good crate upfront...  Yeah, well the interior of the Impala may never recover, nor will my blood pressure.  Lesson learned puppy daddies - PUPPY MOMS ALWAYS KNOW BEST!