Puppy trailer adventures

Biska seems like a big dog to us, because we’ve always had small poodles. Biska’s mom is a small poodle, but her dad was a non-poodle big dude. We think he was a typical mutt – shepherd/pit/aussie/collie. We did a DNA test and that’s how it came back: poodle-supermutt.

Even though she’s bigger than our previous poodles, she’s not big enough (and Tucson is too hot) for her to run alongside a bicycle for very far. And sometimes we would like to bring her along on our rides. For example, we’ve been thinking about doing more bicycling as a means to actually get somewhere, particularly when we’re on a road trip in the van. When we spent a month in Seattle in August of 2022, we only had our camper van with us, and it was hard to maneuver the van through those tight Seattle streets. Bicycles would have been handy for the short trips! Particularly ebikes, because the West Seattle hills are crazy.

We decided to see if a bike trailer would work. I was dubious at first. So was Biska! She was scared on her first ride around the block, with her head down and her tail between her legs. But John gave her lots of treats, and we tried it again, going a little farther a few days later. Then a week or so after that, we went to a nearby park, and when we arrived, she got to get out and walk around in the park. Fun!

Yesterday we decided to go all the way to a local café, buy breakfast, and bike home. John had run the route once awhile ago, and knew it was possible to do completely on trails – except for the first few blocks in our neighborhood. Turns out he didn’t quite remember the route, so we had to turn around and backtrack a couple of times, and once we had to walk the bikes across a dry wash. But in the end, it worked! And now we know the right route.

When we got to the café, John went in and bought a whole quiche. He somehow managed to get the entire quiche into his backpack, and got it home completely unharmed. I was expecting quiche mush, but no, it was completely intact.

They also gave us an unexpected free baguette with the quiche order. It was definitely too long to fit in his backpack, so I strapped to the top of Biska’s carrier.

Do you see it there, it’s the brown paper bag behind her, tied shut with my hair band. Biska is a good girl and is ignoring the aromatic french bread a few inches from her nose.

The outing was fun and we’ll do it again.

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