As we were packing up to leave my parents house on New Year’s day, I got a phone call from my dear friend Timberly and she asked if we might be willing to do them a favor. Turns out she wanted us to pick up a puppy named “Pizza” from her parents house (in the area) and bring it back home with us where she would come to retreive it.

“How big is the puppy?” I asked cautiously, as we were already very cramped on space.
“Little”, she assured me, “…way smaller than Scarlett.”

So we agreed to take on another 4 legged passenger and headed over to pick it up. Well, I soon made the realization that no one really remembers how small Scarlett is. The pup was adorable, of course, but rivaled my mini doxie in weight and length. This was going to be interesting.

So I wrapped the pup in a towel and off we went. Not 3 minutes down the road, the cute little fur ball was whining, wimpering, and pawing at the window; all of which made Scarlett feel sympathetic and want to join in. My phone kept ringing and the dog would not be quiet or hold still, so we pulled over to regroup.

Merc said, “Let’s just put the 2 dogs together in the back seat and see if them get along.” I was definately worried about this, because my dog is a people person, she doesn’t much care for other 4-legged critters. So I warily agreed to try.

I put the pup in the back seat and the ritual of sniffing and inspecting began. We had to instruct Scarlett to be nice a few times, but she seemed to be okay. So we decided to leave them to it and travel on. After a few minutes the pup had muscled Scarlett out of her bed and was sound asleep. Scarlett kept poking a her, like “What’s with the new kid? That’s my bed!” Finally they both drifted off to sleep.

It was smooth sailing until the pup woke up and decided it wanted to play, so for about 20 minutes I was turned around between the seats making sure they didn’t “misunderstand” each other. Scarlett seemed a bit miffed by the playing. Then the puppy tried to lick her and she pulled away in disgust…wonder where she learned that.

The next 20 minutes was a fight to keep the puppy in the back seat. She climbed up on a tv that was behind my seat and kept sticking her head over, under, between our arms and trying to push through. Finally, she got bored and fell asleep…and I do mean fell. She was face down in a paper bag and her butt stuck up in the air still on top of the tv. She slept like this for hours. It didn’t look comfortable, but hey, I wasn’t going to wake a sleeping puppy.

She gradually climbed back up onto the seat and eventually laid across Scarlett’s back for the last leg of the trip. We pulled into Kyle’s parents’ driveway and I got out, opened the back door and picked up the pup…and before I even closed the car door Scarlett had started whining. My dog is crazy! She couldn’t stand the puppy 2 hours ago and now she was whining! And she whined the whole way home.