Tiva's Day at School

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, I was traveling to my sister's in Dallas immediately after school Tuesday. I am unable to just throw my dog in the car and take her for a ride. She hates cars. Let me reiterate...she hates cars so much that she gets very ill if not given the appropriate medication before the trip. My portable mate/friend (aka Jennifer) thought it would be okay if I took Tiva to school for the day. We had it planned. We would put her crate under my friend's desk and I would be able to give her medicine at the right time in the afternoon. This was until around 8:15.

8:15 - Jennifer comes over. She asks me to step into her room to see if I noticed anything. I immediately smelled wet dog. Of course we thought it was Tiva and her crate. I knew that I hadn't washed her crate blankets in a while, but if it had really smelled, I would have smelled it at home as well. At the time, it seemed like the only logical cause to the smell.

9:00 - Another teacher brings a pillow so that I can trade out the blankets in Tiva's cage and put the so-called smelly ones outside. We sprayed Oust around the room claiming that we wanted to kill germs. Keep in mind that the kids have no idea that Tiva is under the desk.

9:45 - The kids go to specials and the odor disappears. We thought it was because of the blankets being taken outside and the Oust.

10:45 - The odor returns. Both classes meet in Jennifer's room for some Reader's Theatre. During one performance the kids begin to get nosy. They start to hear something from under the desk. The kids sitting on the floor next to the desk begin to look under the desk and notice a nose poking out of the crate. They start to whisper, "Ms. H's dog, Dusty, is under her desk." After the Reader's Theatre is over, they confront her about the mysterious wet nose and whimpering under the desk, "Ms. H. I see your dog under your desk." She replies with a very clever, "I can promise you that MY dog is not under my desk." My class returns to our room and only a couple of my kids are still talking about it. I got back and check on Jennifer's class and she said that she told them because they were all talking about it and not working. Most of my class is still oblivious to the matter.

1:15 - Whimpering is again coming from under the desk. The kids are writing, so it is quite obvious. Right about this time, the PE coach walks into my room and says, "L. I'm taking your dog to the gym. She can run around in the office and nobody will ever know." I wasn't really give a choice in this matter and it seemed like an okay idea, so I handed over the leash and off she went.

1:50 - Jennifer's class is in my room watching an informative video about Thanksgiving, also known as Charlie Brown's Voyage on the Mayflower (or something like that). We were still very curious about the odor that keeps appearing and disappearing. Jennifer's "co-teacher" is wandering around my room trying to figure out where the odor is stemming from. She realizes that it was not Tiva, but a student's shoes. This student was sitting in the closest desk to Tiva's crate, which explain why the odor seemed to be coming from the crate. Mystery solved!

2:00 - I head to the gym to check on Tiva and give her the medicine that caused her to be at school in the first place and I barely make it out of my classroom door when I see Tiva and the PE coach outside. Tiva is prancing around, enjoying PE as much as the 3rd graders that she is surrounded by. I have a quick exchange with the coach wondering who is going to get in trouble when our boss sees the dog. She easily says that she'll take the blame. That's wonderful for me, because taking her to PE was not my idea! I give her the needed medicine and was told that she would be returned before the end of the day.

2:45 - The bell has rung, I am at car rider duty and I still don't my dog back. I go to the gym to check on her and she is relaxing in the recliner. I knock on the window and she looks up at me like, "Yes? Do you need something?" I sneak her back to my classroom quickly.

As far as I know, she went undiscovered all day. I wouldn't have done this if she hadn't needed her medicine at a specific time and if it hadn't been the day before a holiday break. She will not be visiting school again anytime soon...unless kids are nowhere in site.