Thorazine on the Bayou

The first Saturday of June, the car was packed, Lola was buckled in, the new tires shined on the car, and we pulled out of the driveway and headed west, Mexican car permit and Lola's International Travel document safely tucked into the pocket on the passenger side door.

There was a sense of deja vu as we pulled onto the same highway on a similar looking day almost a year to the date later, just days after the school year ended, the plastic Virgin of Guadalupe medallion swinging from the rear view mirror on its dental floss string in the same familiar motion.

Things quickly changed.

The first day should be a "manageable" twelve hours, but the previous year we hit horrendous road work and traffic and twelve hours quickly changed to eighteen.  A different problem presented itself this time when as soon as Alabama, rain clouds appeared.  Being adults, we are versed in driving in the rain, but Lola has an almost violent reaction to windshield wipers.  Soon their use was necessary and Lola became so hysterical that she managed to pull loose from her seat belt and breach the barrier her crate created between the front and back seats.  We pulled off onto the side of the highway, cars whipping beside us from the narrow shoulder and a frightened Pit Bull scrambling over both occupants of the front seats.  It was pouring rain. 

I moved to the backseat and managed to get Lola back there with me.  I tried to calm her, but she continued barking for a solid ten minutes.  Violently.  The whites of her eyes were turning red.

"Look, if you can stay back there with her and keep her from getting up front, I say we just drive and she'll bark herself out."
"Okay." I responded, wrapping my arms tightly around Lola in both a hug and a hold.

Alec pulled onto the highway, windshield wipers flapping in the heavy rain.  Lola was barking hysterically and jumping all over me, the long bony legs that support her ninety-five pound body digging and bruising my legs and arms, her toenails tearing holes in my shorts.  It hurt, but I was more upset by how unhappy and afraid she was.  It was not subsiding.  Then I saw the blood.  It coated her teeth and coagulated at the side of her mouth.  It was on the back of the seat.

"Pull over!  She's hurt!!  She's hurting herself!!!"  I screamed.
Alec got us off the highway and into a gas station parking lot.  I pulled out the sedative the vet had given us for the trip.  We had never tried one before, but I knew from experience how Lola is with certain situations and I had asked the vet for something to calm her anxieties, but only when necessary, not some sort of doggie Prozac for the long term.  Slowly she calmed down and began to slump onto my lap and lay her head on my arms. After a half an hour, Alec carefully crept out onto the road again, turning on the windshield wipers.  Lola didn't react, but laid heavily in my arms, eyes blinking.

We rode like that most of the day until somewhere in Louisiana, Lola re-positioned herself, pressing her butt toward me and her head in the opposite direction. Her eyes remained fluttery.  I reluctantly looked up the medicine I had given Lola, knowing I was not going to like what I saw.  I was surprised that I hadn't read up on it before asking for a sedative from the vet, maybe a willful dissonance on my part or that things were busy and I thought the whole thing was pretty standard.

I discovered I had basically given my dog Thorazine, a One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest-type type tranquilizer commonly used and abused on psychotics in the fifties.  I glanced at Lola's half-cast eyes as the late afternoon sun reappeared over the Louisiana bayou.
"Don't freak out, Hilary,"  I reprimanded myself mentally.
"People use this drug all the time, vets prescribe it, you are neurotic and overly protective of your dog."
I glanced back at my phone.
"The drug actually doesn't sedate the dog...."  I read.
"But makes the dog unable to move its body while the mind remains perfectly aware of what is happening.  The dog is simply physically unable to respond to the fear it feels.  Often, the dog will become more fearful after the event because of the experience."
Wonderful.

As darkness arrived in Texas, Lola began to stir, rising up unsteadily on her feet.  We were both glad to see her.  She wore her "Scott Walker Face", or a Forest Gump-like look of dim eyes and a slight tongue protrusion that we assume someone that had experienced shock therapy or some sort of cognitive impairment might exhibit.  We pulled into the hotel, the same one as last year, and carefully exited the car with Lola.

She seemed more cognizant of the notion of a hotel than the year before and jumped up on the big bed, without the questioning look of "Why did we trade in a whole house and a yard for just one room?" and sprawled out.  At least the twelve hour drive was only a sixteen this year instead of an eighteen.

We climbed in the bed on either side of her.  Lola pressed herself toward me and lay glued to my side throughout the night, only shifting to make sure her head was laying squarely in my arms.