When we arrived at my parents house Sunday evening we finally met Sampson, an older Dachshund my parents rescued from the side of the road quite some time ago. I’m not certain if Sampson is actually vicious or just tries really hard to make you believe he is. I’m pretty certain it’s the latter. This handsome guard dog began to bark as soon as he saw us and continued to warn my parents of the evil we were for at least 15 minutes. We tried everything to let him know we were harmless including laying down on the floor to be at his level. Still, it took awhile for him to settle down, stop woofing and let us pet him.
This initial encounter was somewhat short as it had been a long boring drive through eastern Oregon and we were tired. We hugged my parents good night and returned to the nearby campground where we had parked our trailer.
The next morning we..gasped…returned. Sampson barked and barked and barked…and barked. On a humorous note, he initially hid behind my husband to bark at me then remembered Dave was still a stranger as well so he turned around to barked at him. Fortunately he calmed down fairly quickly so we could eat breakfast in peace. Mind you, it didn’t take him too long to decide we were okay to be around and fully accepted being petted and loved by us. Monday was a beautiful day to be out we decided to take a tour of the Oregon Gardens. Naturally we brought Sampson with us who, despite his short little legs, was quite the trooper in keeping up with us for the couple of hours we spent wandering around the Gardens.
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It’s important to know that on the way to the Gardens we had a flat tire Dave had to change. After dropping us off at my parent’s place that afternoon, he went to have the tire repaired. He couldn’t have been gone for more than an hour or so but you would have thought Dave was a robber breaking into the house at midnight the way Sampson went off when he came home. In fact, we spent three full days with my parents including a rather lengthy walk through a nearby forest during which Dave, my sister and I walked Sampson for a good 50 percent of the time without my parents around and he was fine with us.
At the house though, each time Dave left and came back Sampson would sound the alarm (he had eventually moved past barking directly at me). Granted he mellowed out to only a few minutes each episode but still…every…single…time which was followed by getting scritches and love from Dave. By the end of our visit it had become a running joke and still makes me laugh thinking back on it.
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