What I Did This Weekend

In September, I went on a camping trip to Minneapolis. It poured the entire time and I found a dog show to take shelter at. My, what a coincidence it happened to be the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever National Specialty!  I talked and learned and networked and picked out a couple of dogs I decided I wouldn't mind a puppy from. In a few years, the time wasn't right just yet.

In November, I received an e-mail from a breeder I had talked to at the show. She had an adult dog looking for an agility home because his owner's knees weren't holding up and did I want him. Well, that was complicated. I was still living with my aunt and grandmother, and while they adore Gatsby, they do not adore dogs that shed.

In December, we decided that I would move out and get my own apartment as a part of the normal process of growing up, moving out, and turning into a real adult. I started calling places in the newspaper. "Hi, what's your pet policy?"

In January, I started tracking the weather closer than most meteorologists. See, back in October, someone in Yemen mailed a bomb in a copy machine through airline cargo, and the TSA decided that no one needed to be sending things cargo into the United States. Even dogs. A plan was needed to move him from Calgary*, where he was living, to Minneapolis where he breeder lived. He could not cross the US-Canadian Border on a plane. He could not get on a plane if it was under 10*F at either end of the flight.

On Thursday, he flew from Calgary to Vancouver.

On Friday, he drove from Vancouver to Seattle, then flew from Seattle to Minneapolis.

On Saturday, he drove from Minneapolis to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Pinehill's Rainkist at Baywood "Marsh"

I think he likes it here.

Thank you so much to Barb Rohr, Krista Wendland, and Brenda Brown for sending me this wonderful dog. He is a dream.

*Liberties have been taken with Canadian geography. My apologies to the Canuks.