Trailer Park Campfires

See that little ball of white fluff on the left side?  That’s a dog. Not my kind of dog – I like labs, shepherds, pit bulls, and the like.  That little ball of white fluff is actually a Maltese that is about five years old, named Rudy.

Rudy is my son’s dog.  When my son goes away with his mom, I am left to babysit the dog.  Rudy has probably never in his life spent more than an hour at a time outdoors. He’s not a stupid dog – he responds to “Need to go out?” with a wag of a tail and a bunch of yapping that makes me glad I don’t have a gun. He can “sit” and “stay” – for about 30 seconds.  He does know how to “sing,” which I taught him after getting tired of his yapping on and on. When told to “sing,” he’ll try to howl like a wolf, but it comes out more like a whine of a baby. But it’s better than yap, yap, yap.

So last night at the trailer, C. and I were babysitting a dog who’s life is mostly running around a livingroom and wagging his tail and yapping when asked if he needs to go out.

We weren’t sure how Rudy would respond to the Great Outdoors, a campfire, and a trailer. But we took along some dog food and hoped for the best.

Rudy enjoyed his first campfire last night, and I’m not sure if he was sure for most of the time, whether he was “in” or “out.” When we arrived, we rigged up a light rope and tied it one end to the picnic table and the other to the dog’s harness. If Rudy is not restrained, he tends to chase things, especially things that are bigger than he is and that could probably eat him in one gulp. Probably not a good thing in an area where coyotes and wolves are known to hang out.We couldn’t spend the evening outside holding on to his leash, so the only other option was the rope.  Rudy didn’t seem to mind at all, and almost immediately began running in circles, chasing his tail, jumping up and down onto the picnic table bench, and expending tons of energy.

After we got the fire started, C. made sure Rudy was comfortable on this cool evening, letting him cuddle up on her good winter jacket, placed on a lawn chair. The dog seemed to quite enjoy the warmth of the fire, and every so often would look over at me with his quizzical eyes.

At one point it struck me that even though Rudy had been drinking water, he hadn’t peed yet! “Does he not realize he’s outside?” I wondered.

“Hey Rudy,” I said to get his attention. He looked at me. “Do you need to go out?”

Rudy jumped up, wagged his tail, and started yapping.

“You gotta be kidding,” I muttered to myself. C. laughed! “This dog doesn’t actually know he’s outside, and needs me to take him with the leash so he’ll pee!”

Sure enough, I held on to the rope Rudy was attached to, walked with him a little bit over to an out of traffic part of the site, told the dog he was already out, and he peed so much you’d think he had been stuck inside for 8 hours.

Well, he’s smart enough to be well house-trained. But dumb enough to not know when he’s already out! I guess that is what he is used to.

All in all, Rudy did very well on his first camping trip – although I did threaten him that I’d turn him into a “hot dog” if he wasn’t good.  (Shhh.. can’t tell my son I made that threat though!)

The day turned into a beautiful evening, and C. and I scounged for rocks in order to build a fire pit. Considering what we had to work with, I think we did a fantastic job!

It is likely this trailer site was not used for at least a year, and it was obvious that others had come scrounging for the rocks that once circled the fire pit. There were about three rocks left. C. and I went looking for more rocks and ended up building something that’s quite nice. We could build it up a bit higher even, but that will wait for another day.

By 11PM, we had a wonderful fire going. We had little newspaper but lots of kindling of dry dead branches of cedars, and cedar droppings. I had purchased a couple of bags of hardwood from a gas station down the road which wasn’t too bad as far as being dry. Some of the split pieces seemed to have been cut just recently as sap boiled out of them, but for the most part, our fire was really nice.

The stars were shining, the moon was almost full – and some in the trailer park were really partying it up! We could hear whoops and yelps from campers that sounded like banshees at times. I’m sure their neighbours were not happy. One nice thing – inside my trailer, they could be barely heard.

They were not too loud or noisy for us to talk, laugh and have our quiet moments, discussing dreams and hopes, with the fire crackling in the background until 5AM.

When the birds came to play and sing, we decided we needed to get some sleep – and after some cuddling – and the noise of some banging – woodpeckers looking for food in a nearby tree, sleep arrived.