Ben mentioned the other day that I never designated a post about our wonderful dog and his Looping life!!
Crocket was my personal greeter...he met more people than I did. I would walk him and people would approach us calling him by name, otherwise strangers would want to pet him. All he would care about is if you can throw a toy or a ball and how far. He really really enjoyed the social aspect of cruising full time. We were never far from fellow boaters looking for a good time and that seems to be Crockets purpose in life too.
Crocket is English so he is very proper as well as used to routine when it comes to his hygiene and his bathroom duties. Both he seemed to have handled very well while on the boat. We had his hair cut three times in the year we were gone and all three times he was overly excited when we picked him up. Seems he prefers his old groomer, that's all he's known so it makes sense. As far as his bathroom duties...We were never able to get him to go potty on the boat. We literally tried EVERYTHING, we had our aft deck covered with sod, Ben bought a fern to hang so he could lift his leg if he wanted, we cut a section of his best dog buddies yard (which was recently marked) to put out, Ben tried marking the sod. We had scented puppy pads and we even grabbed some of the shrubbery right after he marked it thinking he would want to do it again. All he would do is look at us like we were crazy.
To Crocket, the boat is his house and he was trained to go potty outside, NOT on or in his house. So, we said lots of prayers and talked to our vet about our 24 hour straight travels across the Gulf of Mexico. The vet assured us he would be fine. So, we limited his food intake and water the day we crossed and he did great. Once we reached our destination 24 hours later, he took the longest pee ever!
Crocket was a bit confused and nervous about always being in a new location. Dogs tend to be territorial and with us on the move constantly he did not have his yard to check on daily to get his pee mail. He enjoyed when we stayed at port longer than a day, but that was not always our plan. But all in all Crocket was a great addition to our trip. And I think he loved having us with him everyday all day long, something he never had before when we both were working.
Many people ask about us having our dog on our boat. To us he is part of our family so of course he goes everywhere we go. He loves his boat, swimming, people and us. We never lacked a place to take him potty, we loved that we had him to cuddle all the time, he got us out walking and meeting new people.
Bottom line...did it cause us more work to have him with us? YES Would I have him on the Loop again? Absolutely YES!!!! We shared the experience with our dog and it was wonderful to watch him wake each day stretching, smelling the new air and taking in this most amazing adventure.
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