If you’ve owned pets for any length of time at all, you have probably run into a universal truth. In front of other people, your animal will do something mortifying that she would never do at home. The same dog you have spent hours training and who can do a perfect “sit” 100 times/day for you suddenly becomes Miss Bad Dog in front of others.
We experience this universal truth every time we drop our dogs off at the boarding kennel. Cami, the white dog who generally is reasonably low key, turns into a whirling dervish. When we dropped her off the last time, she ran around in circles and jumped up on the truck tailgate 4 or 5 times. James went to close the back of the truck and bopped Cami’s furry head with the camper shell door, since she was flying up for another pass at the back of the truck. Cami continued running in circles, unphased by the fact that she had a big black mark on her face from the rubber on the camper shell.
After we got the hounds ensconcedin their kennels, Cami then began to howl. Since she’s part Samoyed, she has howling down to an art form. Amidst the cacophony the owner of the boarding kennel told us that as soon as we leave, Cami quiets back down to her normal self and never howls. In fact, we get compliments about how “good” all our dogs are while we’re away.
I’m not sure what is behind Cami’s need to morph into Miss Bad Dog. All I know is that it’s a good thing we don’t travel much.