Tag Archives: Moving with pets

Apartment Training

As of this writing, McKennzie and I have lived for two weeks in our new apartment in Murfreesboro.  It has been quite a learning experience to say the least.  We are both actually enjoying small living now.  The first few days were rough.  On both of us.

While I was busy assembling furniture and trying to get things in place, she was exploring.  She wasn’t fond of the elevator at first and also wasn’t fond of losing sight of me!  After a couple of days, I decided it was time to leave her for a few minutes.  The first time was maybe a minute or two.  She ecstatically welcomed me back. The next time was 5–10 minutes.  She acted like I had been gone a month when I got back.  Finally, I joined my friend for lunch at a cute restaurant across the street from the apartment.  When I returned, she was wailing!  It broke my heart.  However, I didn’t move here part time to just do dog friendly stuff!  I think they may frown on me bringing her to church, for instance.  Anyway, after two weeks, she is still happy to see me when I return, but all is quiet as I approach the door now.

We live in a new, very large complex.  There are ten buildings, all three stories tall, with 360 apartments in all.  We go for walks three to four times a day.  The pup loves that part!  And, since she has discovered the door stops here are the kind that go boinnnggg, she hits those a few times when I’m moving too slowly to take her out for a walk!  For those who have not met McKennzie, she absolutely loves every person she meets.  I think she has decided that their sole purpose for being here is to pet her!  There are a lot of dogs here, too.  And, until she gets to know them, she is scared of every single dog, especially the large ones.  Today, we were at the off leash park and a young woman walked up with two very large, friendly dogs.  Luckily, there are two fenced areas, so they went to the other field.  But McKennzie could see and hear them through the fence.  So, according to her, it was time to leave.  

One day, we went on a long walk in the complex.  I finally told her we needed to head back.  As I was approaching the building, she pulled on her leash, not wanting to go in.  She loves the outdoors, but is usually very compliant with my wishes.  I finally coaxed her in the door.  We walked down the hall, and she was still being reluctant.  As we approached the elevator, she headed towards the door to leave the building.  She was acting so strange for her!  Then I looked around.  I was in the wrong building.  We went outside, she headed straight for the correct building, scurried up the stairs, stopped for the elevator, and went straight to our apartment.  In my defense, the buildings are almost identical.  However, I’m not getting any younger!  I’m thinking of ordering a little ‘service dog’ vest for her.

Maybe then, I can take her to church with me.

Casey and the New House

Change is tough in some ways for most of us, if not all of us.  Even when the change is by choice, there are adjustments to be made.  For me, I guess the main adjustments to our move have been finding a new church, meeting people (I knew NO one here!), getting used to a not-quite 21st century small town, and having no wifi.  Oh, and the seven mile trek up the mountain to get home, which takes 15-20 minutes to drive, due to all the twists and turns.

Casey is no exception.  Although I must say, even with his…..uh…..specialness (bless his heart!), the adjustment process has gone quite well.  Kenn did me a wonderful, HUGE favor……TA DAAAA!

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Yes, that is a doggy door!!!  And yes, he installed it into a stone wall!  Casey used it pretty quickly.  But as before, he had no problems going outside, just struggled to figure out how to get back in the house.  I promise, it swings just as easily both ways!  Bless his heart.  I am happy to report the process has now been mastered.

The house is both on a lake and in the mountains.  The lot is very sloped so there’s not much grass for Casey to romp in.  But since Krystal died, he’s been very clingy to me.  He’s always been a cuddly pup, but now he doesn’t like me to be out of his sight.  Although he can find a little strip of grass to do his business, it’s mostly done on concrete.  So it rolls down the incline.  That took both of us a while to get used to.  I bought a little fire hydrant to give him something to aim at. (I asked Jonathan, an expert writer, to reconstruct the previous sentence so it doesn’t end in the word ‘at’.  His response?  If the sentence is about Casey peeing, restructuring is ridiculous.)

We have all been enjoying our new vehicles, including Casey.  He and I go check the mail in Kenn’s Razor, an all terrain vehicle that is loads of fun driving around on mountain trails here.  We use it to tool around our neighborhood, too, and to get to the boat dock.  Casey seems to enjoy boating.  I bought him a life jacket and sun glasses for boating.  He likes his vest and tolerates the glassesimage

I can’t help but marvel at all the changes that have happened in the past three years.  Some have been extremely hard, like losing sweet Krystal, but most have been great!  I have a lovely new husband and a lovely new home.  We’ve met wonderful neighbors and have joined a wonderful little church.  Life is good.  God is very good!