Back when George was a puppy, before the reactivity had kicked in, we had to deal with quite a bizarre incident in the car on our way home from the beach.
I can see that this would have been a frightening experience for George and may have contributed to his reactivity in the car. Although I'm not sure what I could have done differently.
We were driving back from one of the local West Coast beaches through a rural settlement when a dark liquid suddenly fell out of the sky all over the car windscreen.
I initially thought it was mud and made the stupid mistake of putting my windscreen wipers on. Immediately my windscreen became opaque and I realised it was oil.
I couldn't see a thing and had to stick my head out of the driver side window to pull over to the side of the road. When I got out of the car, I saw that it was all over the car - the roof, the windows, the bonnet - everywhere.
I wasn't quite sure what to do. I was in a rural area but there were some houses around. As I was ineffectively trying to clear my windscreen with a wet wipe, some locals walking up the path asked if I was OK.
Within minutes, we had a small army with buckets of soapy water and rags scrubbing the car. The kindness of strangers!
George was barking a lot at this stage. It must have been very scary to have so many strangers all around the car (he was in the back seat).
I was trying to calm and reassure him but also felt I had to help with the clean-up. Ideally I would have taken him out of the car and away from the people but I didn't feel that I could leave them to clean my car!
I will never find out what happened but I suspect it might have been oil from a small aircraft of some sort...the weirdest thing.
Although George was in a fairly confident state (for him) at that stage, it would have been a stressful event.
It was quite stressful for me as well but I am very grateful for the kindness of the people who helped us out. I'm not entirely sure what I would have done without them!