Earlier this week, I brought our dogs, Mick (a ten-year-old Jack Russell Terrier) and Jasmine (a twelve-something Brittany) to our local Organic Pet Store, Bones & Scones (I kid you not!) for a new experience in doggy oral hygiene; non-anesthetic teeth cleaning. The fact that this task was successfully accomplished without fuss or lost fingers is quite amazing. The results, fantastic and the dent in my wallet, very minimal. I know this from having spent at least twice the cost, per dog, for the traditional anesthesia-required procedure, the last time being at our former Veterinarian's office in Maryland. I got into a conversation with the Pet Dentist (?) Doggy Hygientist (?) We'll just call her Proprietor - about Mick & Jasmine's dental history, I mentioned the fairly unusual method for transporting our precious pups across the country. Not by car, since neither I, nor my husband, had that kind of time and not on Commercial Air. Oh HELL no to that! Far too many horror stories for me. No, nothing but the best for our four-legged children. They flew on the pet equivalent of Private Aviation; Pet Airways!If you're unfamiliar with this relatively new company, Pet Airways (www.petairways.com) is pretty much what the name implies. It is an airline specifically for your pets, or as their tagline puts it Travel for your Best Friend. Unlike commercial air carriers, in Pet Airways's own words Your Pet is not luggage. On the airlines, your pet is shipped in cargo. On Pet Airways, your pet travels in the main cabin, transported with care and love. It’s like Pet Daycare in the sky. No, I receive no royalties for delivering such high praise to this company, just my undying gratitude for their existence and the superior service they provide. At a cost. What cost? Let's just say I could've flown cross-country on a first-class ticket, purchased last-minute for roughly the same price. But, come on! These are our babies! As my friend Milton often reports in his very humorous blog Have You Heard the One About the Gay Jew in the Trailer Park? (and I'm not collecting any royalties from him, either), there is very little we won't do for our dogs.
I've written it before and I'll write it again, there were many, many facets to my and my husband's move from Maryland to Palm Springs and I'll be writing about them. Most of them, anyway. It required the kind of careful planning and coordination usually reserved for those with Project Management Professional certification. In my case, it was the certifiable-but-not-certified method that put my talent for over-thinking everything on overdrive. It was especially challenging for me to keep my wits about me since out of sheer necessity, my husband and I were separated by 3,000 miles for the last four months prior to my departure from the Free State. Of course, we had already set the date for my departure nearly three months before that! This, despite no offers on our Maryland house and, as it would happen, pulling the listing for the winter. No matter. The date had been set for March 11, 2011 and the wheels were set in motion. Especially those that involved the pups. I had heard about Pet Airways from a segment on the Today Show months before and it stuck in my head. After some internet research and a call to their extraordinarily helpful call center, I was enlightened to their process. Flying small prop jets that can hold approximately 29 pets (all but reptiles and rabbits, BTW) depending on the size of the crates required, they fly westbound on Thursdays and arrive on the opposite coast on Fridays. The only humans allowed on board are crew, who regularly check on the pawssengers (their word, not mine!) In addition, to keep pet-stress to a minimum, they fly in two-hour hops across the country, stopping at (mostly) municipal airports where they have secure areas where your best friends are able to deplane, safely. This is an overnight operation the progress of which you may follow online! Perfect for the obsessive-compulsive pet parent. I suppose it was a good thing that AirTran didn't offer in-flight internet on my cross-country flight or I'm sure I would've spent whatever the fee to check make sure that prop jet was on schedule...and still in the sky!
Pricing is based on the size of the Pet Airways-supplied crate you need, so they advise you to measure your pet carefully from floor to the top of their head. First problem, trying to get Miss Jasmine to stand at attention long enough for a proper measurement is problematic at best. Second, and of greater concern, perhaps as a rescue, our Jasmine is none too fond of being crated. We learned this when we tried to crate-train her early on and she literally drooled a pool's worth from sheer anxiety! Despite this, I suspected (and was correct in assuming) that the distraction of the plane noise and other pawssengers would prevent any panic attacks, plus the kind folks at Pet Airways made sure to let her out at each stop. However, according to their sizing guidelines, Jasmine (whom I eventually managed to correctly measure) was right on the cusp of the Extra-Large versus Giant crate. As is typical for me, I agonized over this dilemma for weeks until I finally called the Pet Airways folks (for about the tenth time since I'd made the reservation - 6 months ahead!) and, erring on the side of caution, reserved the Giant crate, which will hold a Great Dane! Our girl would travel first class. Me? Steerage.
Again, there were multiple phases, work breakdown structures and milestones in the Great DC Escape Gantt Chart, but this particular tale involves (forgive the pun) the tail end of the project. By flight time for dogs and human, my Subaru Outback had already been picked up for cross-country transport, a rental SUV obtained, Maryland home emptied and on it's way to escrow, an overnight hotel reserved for me, along with a one-way ticket from BWI to LAX and final overnight accommodations for Mick & Jasmine at their favorite Doggy Day/Night Care establishment, Sniffer's Doggie Depot of Rockville, MD. Departure, minus 24 hours: Pups dropped off at Sniffer's, last minute items packed in suitcases, including important papers in carry-on luggage, and final farewells to neighbors, neighborhood and house before checking into the Best Western for the last overnight.
Naturally, the weather predication for D- (as in Departure) day called for torrential rain - at least it wasn't snow and/or ice. One last call to Pet Airways (who probably already had me on their wacko-dog-parent watch list) to be certain it would be OK to arrive at their lounge about 4 hours early to avoid floods and major traffic en route. My stress level was so high already, my imagination on overdrive, one more pluck on my last gay nerve and I'd have cracked! Of course, the final phase of the plan came off without a hitch, unless you count poor Jasmine getting so excited when I picked her up at Sniffer's that she misjudged the leap into the rental SUV and fell in a puddle! No harm, no foul, just wet dog. The Pet Airways folks couldn't have been nicer, even having us pose for departure shots in their lobby! All that remained was to return the rental SUV, pick up the airport shuttle and await my flight. Paranoid me, of course, arrived at the airport so early (3pm for an 8pm flight!), my bags couldn't even be checked. Amazingly, they actually did arrive in Los Angeles and did not remain under the AirTran ticket counter in Baltimore. After a happy reunion with my hubby, whom I hadn't seen since mid-January, we checked into the Sheraton LAX for a pleasant overnight before picking up the pups mid-afternoon on Friday. And yes, the first thing I did when we checked in to the room was get online and check the puppy's flight progress! They had just left Chicago Midway and were on their way to Omaha, where they would have a 5- hour layover for dinner and general decompressioni. When we picked them up at Hawthorne Municipal Airport, just outside of LAX, they were a tad confused, but no worse for the wear. To them, it was like doggy day care on steroids. Just really, really loud! Two hours later, we arrived at our new Palm Springs home. Mick was fascinated and Jasmine equally so, but a bit startled when she walked, not fell, but literally walked into the pool! No, she doesn't have a Messiah complex, she'd just never seen a pool before. But that, too, is another story for another time.If you like what you read, and I hope you do, please fly me! Actually, just follow my blog.
