In preparation of our journey we decided to give camping with dogs a practice run in my parents yard. We fully intended to try this on two other occasions over the course of the last two weeks, but with the chance of rain both nights, we didn’t want to risk it (it didn’t rain either night). However, last night the weather was in our favor.

Despite the dogs chasing each other around, we got the tent set up relatively quickly. We added the necessary sleeping gear and then had a few hours to kill. The dogs and I spent this time inside watching the NFL Network (keeping the experience authentic 😉). Meanwhile, Ben was in the tent enjoying the great outdoors/the calm before the storm.

Goose was a little too comfortable inside (see below). This should have been a sign of what was to come. Yet I more concerned we’d have issues with Werner sleeping in a strange place.

The boys and I joined Ben around 11pm. Currently, we only have one dog sleeping bag and Goose was quite cozy inside, so I decided it may be best to bring the actual dog bed outside for the night. It’s one of those large Orvis beds and took up a significant amount of space, but it was worth the lost space if it meant he’d sleep. We’d deal with the reality of not having a full sized dog bed on the road later – this was practice.

Werner snuggled right into his plush digs – a real sleeping bag inside a dog sleeping bag. He curled into a ball and had his nose tucked under his leg keeping it warm. Goose made his way into his king sized dog bed and seemed settled. We were golden! That was until a couple minutes later when a leaf ruffled or twig broke or shadow changed or god knows what. Guard dog Goose was having none of this and kept everyone up until 1am low growling/barking at the wind. At one point he was barking at the bush next to my parents house. The same bush that was there 5 minutes earlier had somehow become a threat. Super peaceful.

Around 1:30am, with Goose finally settled, I really needed to pee. In true outdoors(wo)man fashion, I punched in the code for my parents garage and ran inside to use the bathroom. The dogs escaped from the tent and followed me inside. They ran straight to the bedroom where they tried to settle in for the night. Reluctantly, they both came back outside when I returned to the tent. Getting the two of them into tent provided a challenge. There are doors on either side, so while I tried to get Werner in my side, Ben would attempt to grab Goose from his. He’d finally get Goose in to have him wonder back out the other side, which was open because I wasn’t having much luck calling Werner. This happened 2-3 times before we finally had them both inside.

Everyone settled back in and we slept for the next 4 or so hours, somewhat uninterrupted. Goose, who is not only a guard dog, but also an alarm clock, decided it was time to rise a little before 6am. Rather than fully commit and try to cook ourselves something outside we retreated indoors to a fresh pot of coffee (thanks,  Mom!).

Coffee didn’t wake me up the way I needed and I got back in bed for a short nap. The boys joined and we got in an extra 1.5 hours. We’re gonna miss the comforts of home!

When I asked Ben if he wanted to help me write a blog post, he responded sarcastically, “About how great we slept last night?” So…it could have gone better, but we’ll get there!