Our Savior.

Last week when we were house sitting for Nate’s sister, we had the opportunity to put Dalton in doggy daycare with her two dogs while we were at work. Not only did we come home to 3 tired dogs, but when they got a little energy later in the evening they would bother each other instead of us! After we discovered that we could actually tire out our dog by putting him in DD, we thought that we could look into it a couple days a week for our sake and his.

After a little searching and looking over reviews we found an amazing place, Desert dog Daycare. I printed off the application (yes, you have to fill out an application) and being the spazz that I am, went into way more detail than was necessary. They ask you questions like: “has your dog ever been possessive over food, toys or water?” “How does your dog get along with other sizes of dogs?” “Does your dog have an aversion to any other breeds of dog?” “Has your dog ever bitten anyone?” Now I know why they ask these questions, and I know that Dalton is a good dog and has never had any problems besides resource guarding, but for some reason all those questions made me nervous and I found myself justifying things that didn’t need to be justified. For instance, on the question that asked whether or not Dalton got along with small dogs, the answer should have been “Yes” but I went into this big long thing about how he liked small dogs, but played better with bigger dogs because he liked to roll around and bite and paw, and he probably would do great but maybe he’d do even better with dogs his own size…… and on, and on.

Then there is the interview. You get a “trial” day where you bring in your dog, they take them in the large playroom and have you wait in the lobby/viewing room. The reason for this is so they can observe your dog without you, since dogs act totally different when their owner is not present. And if there are any problems you can take the dog home and cry because you have an inferior animal. Thankfully, the level headed Nate went to the interview instead of me. I probably would have cried like he was my kid, and it was his first day of school. After about 10 minutes, the lovely woman told Nate that Dalton was doing great, and he could stay the rest of the day.

It was a thrilling moment when we found out our dog had “passed” and would be allowed into doggy daycare. The heavens opened up, the sun shone a little brighter, and whatever religious deity you believe in, gave a big thumbs up! This would mean that for 2 days out of every 7, we wouldn’t have to try and run our dog to death. And if it worked like we hoped it would, it would be easier to tire him out on the days between going to doggy daycare. I am not a religious person, but if there was a way to pray to the god (anyone ever notice that god is dog backwards? Just sayin…) of doggy daycare I would thank him or her every day for the generous thoughtful gift of daycare, and ask him to continue blessing us with a dog that we could stand to be around and not want to strangle.

Yesterday was Daltons first official day in doggy daycare. When I picked him up they told me how great he did, how he liked to play with smaller dogs (go figure), how he got in the pool (water is not his favorite thing), and how friendly and good he was. I was so proud, if I had a gold star I would have put one on his forehead.