There are many people in our lives who give us the stink eye or poke some fun at us for the importance we give to our dogs. That is, people who have never had a dog of their own or don’t know us very well.
We are halfway through a two thousand km journey by car to Copenhagen. Jazz and Ginger, our four legged companions, are with us for the first time and it is not easy for them. Stuck for hours in the trunk, allowed to go out only when we deem ourselves ready to make a stop, they have not complained once. They are the perfect embodiment of “our home is where you two are.”
True, we have to walk them every morning, noon and evening. We go slower than we might without them, accommodation is a bit more difficult to find and more expensive and we have to pay more attention to rules to make sure we know how we need to clean streets after them. Meaning, we walk daily, wherever we are and regardless of the weather, we are more prudent and pay more attention to what we choose and the rules. Good all around.
We’ve walked them in three different cities in the past three days and we notice so many commonalities. Of course, each city has the people who look at us like we should have something better to do than walk at 6 AM. What is more important though, we have been getting more smiles than if we were alone, children stop to talk to us because … because children and dogs. Walking around we see , we really see the sites. We pause more often. We are dragged back into the present by their only inhabiting that space. Always.
Relocating with pets is not easy but it is definitely a way to stay sane through travel in heat, nostalgia and worry about the future, bad accommodation and inherent road struggles. We highly recommend it.
They have only one humongous flaw: they are mortal.
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