luna and betsy take flight

my cousin called me last week and said, “hi b, want to go to new york and pick up a puppy?” um, well of course i do: A. she said PUPPY!!!! and B. and really most importantly my grandmother who lives in NYC turns 96 years old in a few weeks and i relish every opportunity to see her.
ok back to the PUPPY part. as a rescuer, i am not into breeder dogs. but when you’ve tried to get people to adopt dogs for an extended period of time and they consistently resist, it’s sometimes best to embrace one of my favorite mantras:  “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”. meaning i’ve tried to get my friend/family/coworker (in this case my cousin) to adopt for the longest time, and it’s not happening. so at least lets make sure the dog is coming from a good breeder-which it is (one who supports rescue, works hard to keep the integrity of the breed, requires thorough background check, and who cares for their dogs etc.) and lets make sure that dog is raised with tons of love and training so it never has to be rescued or re-homed in the future- which i know it will be.

conveniently, and truly i had the opportunity to have some very important meetings in nyc. so with a work purpose, a puppy purpose and a family purpose i got on a plane on thursday and jetted to nyc.

i worked all day on friday, hung out with my boyfriend on saturday and at 5:00pm a little bundle of golden retriever love arrive at my grandmother’s apartment. her name is luna…the plan was to get her, chill for the night at my gran’s and then get up to go to jfk at 7:30ish for a 10:00 flight. well that was the plan anyway.

when it was time to go to bed, luna, wasn’t all that interested in sleeping-not in her bag, not in bed with me, not anywhere without snooping around an apartment that was NOT meant for puppies. art, oriental rugs, vintage furniture… and where there weren’t fragile items there were dangerous ones- power cords, heaters etc.

i got luna to sleep in her bag for about 90 minutes, all the while i only slept at about 40%. waiting to see if she slept, if she made noises, if she cried. all of which she did until that point when it was clear she wanted to be awake. we went back to the kitchen which i had determined to be a safe zone (confined and easy clean up) and she romped around; played with her toys and generally acted beyond the valley of adorable. soon,  i got to the point of crossed-eyed fatigue and i simply had to figure out a way to sleep without worry about her destroying anything or hurting herself.

staring at a paired down 1950’s kitchen with a cold, hard linoleum floor.  i thought have i totally lost my mind that i am contemplating dragging out the duvet and sleeping on the ground to accomodate not only the puppy but the other people sleeping in the apartment who would surely be awoken by her cries.  so i compromised. i hijacked the 1950’s mattress from the back bedroom and dropped it down onto the floor. i was asleep as was luna, on my head by the way, within minutes.

we stayed that way for about 2+ hours until it was uppy time! ugh. i got up and went back to the kitchen as luna romped and played with her toys. while she made a few substantial pees around, which i over course cleaned up handily, she walked around in cirles squatting intermittently without generating more than a quick squirt of what appeared to be cloudy pee.  this wasn’t marking behavior. it seemed that she really needed to go, but couldn’t. being a girl, it’s quite easy to identify this behavior as indicative of a bladder infection! ugh. they are so painful.

with the prospect of a 6 hour flight in approximately 7 hours, i felt that to be on the safe side luna needed to be seen by a doctor. how horrible for her to have to be cooped up on a plane with a urinary tract infection. i then hesistated for a bit; maybe i was being an overreactive jewish dog guardian. maybe i should just watch her for bit and see. she then squatted and didn’t potty about 4 more times. i knew i had to go.

i got online and googled 24 hour emergency vet and my gran’s nyc zip code. within minutes we were at the Animal Veterinary Medical Clinic. (by the way shout out to them- they were amazing).

i sat in the waiting room for about 2 hours with luna talking to other patients’ worried parents. i giggled with another golden’s mommy and cried with a sweet police office while i helped him make the decision about whether or not it was time to put his dog to sleep. sadly it was.

luna meanwhile was chilling. making friends and giving kisses to the support staff until the vet was available. the vet’s name was alicia and she took amazing care of luna. after a night of extremely depressed cases, a puppy with a UTI was a gift for her. a shot of pain meds and antibiotics we were on our way back home just in time for the alarm to go off to wake us up to go to the airport!

andre, my ever patient, ever wonderful boyfriend drove us to jfk for the flight. walking through the terminal we couldn’t walk 2 feet without an oohh or an ahhh! luna was a star. and i exploited up every bit of that attention to keep her awake; idea being if she’s awake now she’ll hopefully sleep on the plane!

and so she did for about 3 hours at which point it was uppy-up time. thankfully luna and i had the most amazing flight crew on american airlines- shout out to dana in particular! although it is way way way against policy luna spent the second 3 hours of the plane giving kisses and entertaining the passengers and crew.

it was indeed one of the best trips i’ve ever had across the country. especially because on the other end i was able to deliver my newest niece to her loving family!