A Dog-Gone Good Vacation
What do you get if you combine two 12-year-old boys, a mother, a grandmother, and a Yorkshire terrier for a week at Kiawah Island, South Carolina? You get exercise, sand fleas, sunburn, and fun.
By 6 a.m. on our departure day, I had loaded the Mazda van with a red duffel bag, cosmetic case, a stack of beach towels, snack foods, and cases of Coke and Sprite. The trunk was already three-fourths full before I had even picked up the other passengers.
As I arrived at my daughter’s house, her crew exited the back door carrying enough stuff to fill a wagon train headed West. There were suitcases, pillows, backpacks, beach bags, a doggie bed, and board games. By the time we crammed everything into the van, there was hardly room for Bone, Candie’s three-pound Yorkie.
Candie took over the wheel for the drive, and I took over the worrying.
“Eeek! Watch that truck. It’s too close.”
“Look out! Get in the other lane!”
“Are you sure this is the right road?”
“Mom, quit screaming. You’re making me nervous!”
Too excited to sleep, the boys settled into the back seat and pulled out their hand-held video games. Then they began to shout strange commands.
“Sit. Stay. Lie down.”
At first, I thought they were talking to Candie’s dog.
“Who are you guys talking to back there?”
“We’re playing Nintendogs, Grandma.”
After many questions and explanations, I learned about this clever Nintendo DS game involving a stylus, touch screen and built-in microphone. The game allows you to care for different breeds of virtual dogs that you can feed, train, wash, and take for walks. You can even teach them to do tricks.
In addition, Nintendogs allows you to link up your system with another person so your dogs can play together. Of course, both boys did this and talked to their pets simultaneously. Sometimes they had to shout to make themselves heard by the DS microphone.
“Shake. Shake. SHAKE!” The constant yelling sometimes made me shake more than the virtual dogs, but I was impressed by how the game enthralled two 12-year-old boys on a seven-hour car ride.
During our Kiawah vacation, I learned every command on the Nintendogs game, including spin, beg, back flip, play ball, and roll over. Naturally, the real dog, Bone, ignored every command the boys issued and spent most of his time doing what he did best — napping. However, he did enjoy taking daily bicycle rides in the little basket attached to Candie’s bike. His little paws firmly placed on the front of the basket, he surveyed the scene like a Great Dane.
The week at Kiawah frolicking at the beach, watching alligators in the lagoons, and, of course, playing Nintendogs, passed by swiftly, and both the boys and the dogs, virtual and real, were remarkably well-behaved.
This was one vacation that definitely went to the dogs, but at least the virtual dogs required no cleaning up.
Judy L. DiGregorio is the author of three humor books from Celtic Cat Publishing, "Memories of a Loose Woman," "Life Among the Lilliputians," and "Tidbits," plus a CD, all available on Amazon.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: A Dog-Gone Good Vacation
