Travels with Harley the Dog: Eugene, Oregon

Harley sat in the back seat, panting. He was visibly upset and we had three more hours of driving to go. At the highway rest stop, we got out of the car and  walked him across a muddy grass field, as far away from the traffic as I could get. This was not far — he still flinched when a semi-truck came rolling in. This was Harley’s first real road trip, save for the day he came home from the shelter and that was only 45 minutes.

I had been driving Harley around town, taking him to the beach, to the local dog-friendly cafe, a few times he came along just to run errands. I wanted him to be used to the car; to enjoy it. But he would cry even on the 15 minute drive to obedience school.

Meet Harley the Dog: He is scared of the world. I don’t know what joke the fates were playing when they matched me with a four legged friend who finds almost everything terrifying, but this is where we have landed. In hopes it would assuage his anxiety, Julius (the husband) took over the driving and I moved to the back seat. Harley relaxed a little, though he dropped great amounts of his coat — much of it on me —  thanks to a three hour run of stress shedding.

I looked like a Muppet when I got out of the car. Harley leaped to the driveway from the back seat, shook a few times, and looked at me. “That’s over, then,” he seemed to say, “We should go for a walk now.” He was right; I needed a walk after the long drive too. I shook off the dog hair and we went to stretch our legs.

We stayed in an Airbnb, a little studio cottage accessed through a fenced backyard. It was a perfect choice. At hotels, the additional fee for Harley was, well, prohibitive is bit strong, but it was steep; the vacation rental was a better deal. We were in a quiet neighborhood near Eugene’s Masonic Cemetery. Harley loved walking in the cemetery; he prefers the company of the dead, they don’t make sudden moves and they’re very quiet. Harley did not like the arterials of Eugene, though, and our walk to get baked goods and coffee at an excellent Jewish deli was made more work when I had to carry Harley down the long noisy stretches of the parkway.

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The return drive went much better. Harley spent the first part it in his crate and stopped crying after about half an hour. Instead of a roadside turn out for our halfway point, we found a big city park. It was a weekday and the weather had been bad, so it was very quiet. We took a long walk and when we went back to the car, Harley lay down with his head in my lap and stayed calm until we were about an hour from Seattle.  He doesn’t care much for stop and go traffic. Who does, I ask you? He was very bouncy when we got back home — he joyfully ran up and down the stairs a few times before hurling himself into his bed and looking quite pleased with himself.

Traveling with Harley the Dog added unanticipated constraints to our plans, though they weren’t all bad. I enjoyed the twice daily walks through the cemetery, spending time with the historic figures of Eugene. We had to pay attention to our schedule and make sure we let H-dog out every four to six hours; that meant going back to our stay more often than we might have without Harley. We carried a fair bit of extra stuff with us, bedding, food, treats. And we had to weigh our walking routes for traffic because of Harley’s fear of noisy cars, trucks, and the like.  That was a hassle, but it’s not more or less a hassle than it is at home.

Traveling anywhere with Harley requires we see less of the world in terms of range, but take greater notice of what’s right in front of us. The texture of the ground, the sounds of the neighborhood, anything unexpectedly in motion — another dog, a woman on a bicycle, a rusty old truck that needs a muffler job backing out of a driveway half way down the block.

I’d like to say Harley is also helping us make new friends, but fearful dog just isn’t there yet. When we walked past the off-leash area in Amazon Park, I asked Harley when he’d be ready for that. He didn’t answer and went to bury his nose in a clump of grass while I looked at the long light coming through the bare trees. “Okay Harley,” I said, “that’s a fair substitute. I’ll take it.”