And the trip

Thanksgiving is too short of a break, even with me taking a "personal day" to travel Tuesday.

If I were only driving an hour or two, it wouldn't be anything, but sixteen hours on a train is no joke.

Still, it was good to go. My niece is unfortunately at that stage where she really doesn't want anything to do with people she doesn't know well, even if she's related to them. She did peek at me from behind her mother's legs, and consented to let me hug her once or twice (I got down on the floor, to her level; I didn't want to risk the upset picking her up might cause).

The dog, on the other hand - the dog took to me immediately. As soon as I walked in the door, he trotted up to me, put his front paws on my knee, and wanted me to scratch his ears.

I know I said I'm really not a dog person, and that's partly because I have had a few bad experiences in my life (a German shepherd, a boxer, and a mixed-breed sort of thing - ranging from barking viciously to trying to bite). However, Shiba Inus are much more like domesticated foxes than they are like wolves - in fact, this dog is sort of fox-colored, and he has ears that stand up, and an intelligent (yes, I'm being anthropomorphic) little foxy face. And he was a lot smaller than I was anticipating - not a big dog at all, but sort of medium sized, maybe about 16" tall at the shoulder.

And he was well-behaved, which made a big difference. Apparently Shibas don't really bark (he would whine if he needed to be walked or on the couple of occasions he begged for "people food") and while he's a little "mouthy" in the way puppies are, he never actually bit down, and if you said "Off!" he would stop it.

I wound up walking him a couple of times (including the whole baggie ritual, which I really would rather not have done). My brother and sister in law went to visit her brother, and he absolutely would not let them bring the dog - so the rest of us dog-sat for the day. (He mostly spent it sleeping stretched out by the door, waiting for them to come back - wasn't there a movie about a Shiba who walked to the train station with his master, and when his master died unexpectedly one day at work, the dog still kept returning to the station, waiting for him?).  (I will confess- this was Wednesday before Thanksgiving - he did get a tiny bit of cheese when I had some for lunch, and a couple tiny bites of raw piecrust when my mom was making pies. In my family, as kids growing up, the leftover uncooked piecrust was seen as kind of a delicacy. I admit that I still like it even though I know it's fat and flour and salt....)

The dog knew how to sit, and to lie down, and he responded to "off!" as I said before (either if he was mouthing or jumping). And when I walked him, "Let's go!" or "Leave it!" worked if he was dawdling over something he wanted to eat but should not (bird droppings, apples off the ornamental trees, leaves)

No, I don't want one of my own; especially in cold weather, walking a dog is not that fun, and I could do without picking up after him (but you really have to, to be a good neighbor).

I did resist making any doge jokes because I don't know if anyone else was familiar with the meme. I did, however, think, "Wow. So feet. Much wool." because the dog liked licking my feet in their wool socks. I don't know if it was the wool or the feet; my brother did say, "He likes feet," but he also tried to lick the sweater I had on.