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| Chai |
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| Chai exploring new back garden in Memphis, Tennessee |
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| Chai and Sachi in back garden in Memphis, Tennessee |
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| I don't like pugs but Pepper is okay |
In our experience, transportations rarely go as planned, bringing with them both challenging and pleasant surprises. Alexis' tale is no exception. She is worthy of great credit by tackling such a trip, entirely on her own, with luggage, and 8 animals!
In December 2006 after just over 6 years of living in Germany and one year after adopting my second Galgo Espanol, Chai, it was time to move on and that meant moving to America. When I adopted Chai, I already had a Podenco-Galgo mix and 4 pugs, so Chai was number 6.
It wasn't however, until February that I found out where I was going. Working for the US government as a civil servant you don't always know where you are going. Sometimes you get to pick the place but in this instance it was like the lottery. I was told I'd be going to Memphis, Tennessee.
Well, with 6 dogs you can't stay in a hotel while looking for a place to live so I had to go online and find a house and an estate agent who could understand my need to find something almost sight unseen. I found a nice house with a large garden so all that was left was to travel to Tennessee.
Originally I had a ticket along with my daughter to fly on the 22nd of March but my daughter decided the Friday before, to run away from home during the night and leave me a note saying she didn't want to go back to the States. This left me with the task of getting the 6 dogs and 2 cats ready to travel by myself. Before the flight, I took the dogs to the vet to get their health certificates where the vet gave their mandatory worm treatments required for exportation.
In the mean time, since airlines only allow you to take one pet per person as excess baggage, I had to ship 5 of the dogs, to include Chai, through a pet shipping company known as Gradlyn Kennels or GK Air. They are fantastic. This was the second time I'd used them, and again I was very happy with their service. All dogs and the 2 cats flew on the same plane I flew on, but as cargo.
On the morning of the flight, I packed everyone in a rental car and we drove for an hour from Kaiserslautern, Germany, to Frankfurt International airport, to the Lufthansa cargo center where we put them into their kennels for the flight. We landed in Atlanta, Georgia, that afternoon and I collected the one pug who had flown as excess baggage, and went to pick up the rental van I'd reserved. However, unlike in Europe where you can pay cash for the rental, in the U.S., you have to have a credit card. Mine is attached to my bank account and I'd taken all the money allowed out for the trip, and no one wanted to help me. I saw myself being stranded in Atlanta, but I pulled myself together and took a taxi to the Lufthansa cargo to claim the rest of the pets. When I got there it was after 5 p.m. and customs had closed for the day. If I had to leave them overnight, it would have been very expensive. However, a very nice man working for Lufthansa stayed several hours beyond his quitting time and called in some favors and we got everyone cleared. This left only the problem of transportation. During all this time I made a phone call to a friend in another State telling her of my problem with getting a rental. When I got off the phone, a woman working there said if the only problem was not having a credit card, she would put the van rental on her card and I could just give her the cash I had!
So, with the help of some really great people at Lufthansa Cargo, we were ready to go. Two of the men in the cargo area helped me load (squeeze in) 6 dog kennels and one cat kennel in a minivan for the trip to Memphis.
It was 10.30 at night and although I didn't have jet lag, I was tired , so I pulled the van around the corner to a well lit area and we all slept off and on.
At 5 a.m. I felt very hungry. I took each dog out for a walk, then drove to an all night place to eat breakfast, then slept in their parking lot for another hour before starting the 6 hour trip to Memphis. It was a long, hot trip but we had air-conditioning and I stopped every couple of hours to take the dogs one at a time for a walk. We arrived in good time and went immediately to our new house where we got settled in. I have to say that Chai travelled very well and is now settled in America.
Alexis Colby