Washington to Virginia | Day 5

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Phew, day five done! Today, we traveled from Davenport, IA to Dayton, OH with a stop in Indianapolis.

*Note: I’m writing these at the end of each day, so I’m pretty tired when I do. I apologize if I rant or things read strangely.

We got up fairly early since it would be about a five hour drive from our hotel to my sister-in-law’s house in Indianapolis. Plus, we try and take fairly long breaks every two to three hours to let the floofs stretch their legs.

Kaani did pretty well at relaxing when he saw people during our breaks. He was still very alert, but as long as people were at least 50 feet away, it was fairly easy to redirect his attention.

But, it’s definitely not all good.

A few times, people walked by the parked car and made Kaani extremely upset. At this point, if he barks at someone, it’s usually just an alert bark (it used to be a very ferocious bark/growl). When the people came within a few feet of the car, the ferocious bark came out.

Once we’re not in the midst of moving, we’ll be able to actually work on these behaviors. Right now, we’re just trying to manage them. There’s only so much you can work on when you can’t create a stable, manageable training environment.

But, we’re still trying to turn every opportunity we can to create positive training experiences for Kaani.

Visiting relatives

We were able to take about two hours this afternoon to visit Nick’s sister, her husband, and their kiddo (who will be two later this summer). Luckily, they have a fenced in yard, so we were able to let everyone run around for a bit and burn off some energy.

Kaani didn’t meet the family because we knew it would be too much for him at this point. But he was happy relaxing in the shade in the yard after a quick zoomie session.

Indie was in the house with us and wasn’t too sure about the miniature, squealing human, but she warmed up quickly. She even let him give her kisses—which was beyond adorable.

Here’s where I completely failed. I didn’t get a video of the adorable kisses. I didn’t get a video of the floofs running zoomies and checking out the neighbor’s chickens. I didn’t get a video of the adorable toddler holding Mauja’s leash and walking her around the house.

Mauja absolutely adores kiddos. She’s so gentle, relaxed, and easy-going. She’ll gladly follow little ones around, wagging happily the entire time. Atka and Kiska are also great with kiddos, but I thought they had too much pent up energy. My nephew loves dogs—and would even “woof woof” with them—but I still didn’t want him getting knocked over!

I went from, “I need to document everything!” to “I just want to enjoy this moment.” So, sorry I can’t share the adorableness with you, but we all have to take the time to be present.

Since we’re going to be living closer, I’m sure we’ll get many more opportunities.

After a few hours, we had to hit the road again to finish our day. Thankfully, we only had about two hours until we hit the hotel.

Tomorrow, we head to my in-law’s house for the evening. They have a house on the lake and Atka absolutely loves the water. He’ll be excited to get to swim for a bit!

Learn about the rest of our trip

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4