Reward trip for the dogs – Lake Catherine in Arkansas

Hard to believe that as many trips as I have taken that I have never taken the dogs out of town. They ride around with me all the time around town, but I don’t think they have ever left the city limits.

So I decided it was high time for a dog reward trip for their patience sitting here while I take off over and over. I thought hiking and swimming should be the agenda and since it was already beastly hot here, I felt we had to head north. While I love to camp, I wasn’t sure if they would tear up my tent and possibly bark all night at every noise. The best idea for this test trip seemed to be cabins that are dog accepting and I found a state park in Arkansas that  let you bring a dog.

After a lifetime of fairly short trips around town where they stand up with their heads out the window the entire time they were a little confused when I got on the highway and the windows went up. They were more confused three hours later when were were still going and would not lay down. Around 4 hours Nikki gave up and rested. Ellie stood for the entire 5 hour trip, but I got the feeling she wasn’t totally enthralled with the car movement for hours on end.  I was worried they’d be too tired on arrival to do anything.

We spent a couple days at Lake Catherine State Park and the dogs loved both hiking the trails and swimming in the lake and were constantly ready to head out of the door again. More confusion came at bed time since I had not brought beds for them. They simply didn’t know what to do until I put towels down on the floor. They promptly flopped down and went to sleep. Who would have thought that would be an issue for a dog?