Bring on the road

Toby loves car rides, I mean REALLY loves them. His little nub wiggles overtime when I lift him into the car and he just spins in endless circles in the front seat, until I start to pull out of our driveway. He'll watch out the window attentively and then after a while, just sprawl across the passenger seat wedging his little nose into my leg. He makes any commute so much happier :)

Since my hubby and I share one car, we take Toby pretty much everywhere we can so he doesn't have to be home alone. He'll come with my hubby to pick me up from work some days and I'll take him with me to the store or to pick up take out. When we're both in the car he happily sits in between us, usually shoving his little bunny butt against the leg of who's ever driving and sprawling out on the passengers lap. He's typically a dream!

Then: Enter the Rain! Dun dun duh!!! Okay, seriously, I wasn't even thinking about the rain as I got Toby into the car. Except maybe the thought that I'd be driving with a slightly moist puppy rolling all over my pants and that I was really glad to have some body spray an a lint roller in the back seat LOL. But, Toby likes rain for the most part, even on long walks he dosen't seem to mind it one bit.

So, car time started as usual, nub was a wagging full speed while I was starting the car and then BAM! He just went CRAZY! Barking and lurching forward, he even hit his head on the rear view mirror. What happened you ask? I turned on the windshield wipers. And suddenly our nice, peaceful car trip was transformed into a no holds barred, grudge match of barking and flying fur in the front seat! An epic battle to the death to save momma from the Evil Windshield Wiper Monster. I tried really hard not to laugh, I honestly did, but he was just so serious and it just caught me so off guard I couldn't help it. :)

He was lunging so hard against his little harness that I thought he might actually break it. So, I turned them off and within a minute Toby was back to his usual happy, calm self. I was thnking maybe he just wasn't read for them and was startled, so I gave him a few treats and rubbed his chest while he was calm and smiley.

Round Two: Wipers go back on and aforementioned chaos resumes. Nope, Toby was still not having it. So, for the next 20 minutes I tried to work with him, offering yummy treats for being quiet and even slowing the speed of the wipers to a crawl, but he was utterly fixated and just continued to bark like crazy. His bark even kept in time with the wipers rhythm, if they were going slow, he'd bark slow...and as I sped them up, he'd bark faster. Nothing worked.

Finally, after 30 minutes (I'm glad I didn't have anywhere urgent to be) of being locked in the cab of my car with his ear piercing bark, I was going deaf, so I threw in the towel. I turned them off, went inside got his crate and got him situated in the back seat, with a blanket covering the front so he couldn't see. By the time I got back around into the drivers seat, I hear snoring!!! Less than two minutes had gone by and he was sound asleep! Apparently, he felt very satisfied with his victory, having successfully scared the Evil Wiper Monster away  LOL.