Thunder’s Tent

Thunders First Night Camping

A few months ago when we started to plan out our road trip from Anchorage to Boston we made plans to bring the dog with us. We decided to buy him a specially designed dog tent and sleeping pad.

When we got to Anchorage we picked up his tent and sleeping pad from REI. That night, when we set up the tent and sleeping pad in Vicki’s living room he immediately knew that it was his. He jumped in the door and curled up on the sleeping pad. It was pretty hard to coax him back to his crate after he had experienced the tent.

Our first night camping, Thunder happily sat in his tent while we cooked dinner at the picnic table beside him. At bedtime we said goodnight, zipped his tent up, and went into our tent. While we were reading we heard him pacing back and forth, but figured that he would get comfortable pretty soon. Then, just as we were drifting off to sleep, he started trying to dig at the gravel underneath his tent. When we got up to check on him he was anxiously pacing, digging, and trying to snap at the mosquitoes that had gotten into his tent. We gave him some attention, petted him, and got him calmly back in his tent. But when we tried to leave his line of sight he got anxious again. We tried for a long time to get him to understand that our tent was right next to his and that he wasn’t being abandoned, but every time we went into our tent he became anxious again. Eventually we said to him, “ok, you can stay in our tent with us.” As teachers we like to think we’re strict, but maybe not so much… And that is how we came to cram two people and a dog into a two person tent. Note that this is a tent so small that when we show pictures of it to friends they can’t believe that even two people fit in it.