Kemba’s First Trip To Vermont

Wow — four weeks Kemba had been living in Westport as of last Saturday, and I hadn’t yet taken him on a single major road trip!  (Not counting his original epic drive from Nova Scotia down to CT, that is.)  Had to do something about that, so last weekend Beagle Man and the

Missus loaded Kemba into the Q5 and headed north — to Vermont.  Toller Pup behaved absolutely perfectly for the entire drive, both ways . . . so bring on LA/XC-4 this spring!!!

We started Kemba off with some VT basics.  Before even setting foot in the house, we went for a long, off-leash adventure along French Hollow Road — a packed-dirt, mostly traffic-free trail through the woods.  He explored the ditch on both sides of the road, romped ahead and behind, peeked through culverts, dipped his big white puppy paws in a narrow stream, picked up and

examined a frog carcass — good, clean fun.  But no

matter where he ventured, he always checked back at us with those big, dark puppy eyes, and came running when called.  Carol was amazed at his very civilized and obedient walking behavior.  (Needless to say, she doesn’t take part in our daily sunrise walks at Burying Hill Beach.  I already knew I could trust him.)

Next: into Manchester for a downtown stroll with my friend Erynn and her new dog Harry, a handsome eight-year-old Australian Shepherd-Chow mix named for Prince Harry, Erynn’s celeb-crush. Messrs. K and H (Get that allusion?  Announce yourself on “Comments” and get some credit) got along great, despite their age difference, though Kemba slowed everyone down by going on a clean-up mission and picking up every used tissue, dirty napkin, fast-food wrapper — even a disposable nursing pad — along the way.  We pulled a random shopper out of LOFT (Manchester is outlet capital of the world) to take our photo, and she happened to be a NYC veterinarian — Sally, from St. Marks Veterinary — and a Toller-lover to boot!

After Kemba’s long day of driving from CT to VT, walking the woods, and strolling through town, Carol was holding her breath — sure that he’d leave his “mark” in the house.  But he helped me barbecue out on the deck, snuggled in for the USC-UCLA football game (Trojans stunk up the field) — and didn’t have one single mishap.  I, for one, was very proud.

Sunday morning Kemba was up, as usual, at 6 — though this time our sunrise walk was  through the Vermont woods rather than along the water on Long Island Sound.  You can set your watch by that puppy:  If it’s 6 AM, he’s ready to roll.  Or toll.  In any event, I got to punch my frequent flyer coffee card at Bromley Market pretty damn early.

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