Given that this vacation was immediately before Jackson’s impending trip, there was still a lot to do and to distract me while I was away – final arrangements and invoices to pay, mentally rehearsing the packing up and packing off I still needed to finish on my return to Scotland. And inevitably I kept meeting people with inseparable bonds with their dogs – the owner of a hotel I was staying, my boss from when I worked on the Canary island of Tenerife. That connection between a person and their dog is so personal, so strongly represents who they are, even reinforces who they are. It’s not quite the 101 Dalmatians scene of dogs as a mirror of their owners, but not far off. I realise that in a former life I probably was a labrador, but this is only a recent revelation. There’s so much of the labrador personality in me, and of my personality in Jackson, that we’re somehow symbiotic, yet individual, reflecting and feeding off each other, making the other somehow more. We learn from each other. We sense how the other is feeling, and respond instinctively most of the time.
In The Labrador Handbook by Pippa Mattinson, the labrador character it’s described as happy-go-lucky, with an “astonishing ability to learn …, a passion for retrieving … and a desire to cooperate with people”. She also points out his ‘faults’ as being ‘big, greedy, smelly, clumsy, boisterous, careless and messy’ amongst other things. Every dog is an individual, of course, and there’s a balance to be had between nature and nurture, skewed I believe towards the latter – negative experiences leading to negative responses, sometimes aggressive ones, or perhaps ones that on the surface seem aggressive but which are in fact just an outlet to the need for activity, attention, energy and engagement. Jackson had his moments in his ‘jumpy-bitey’ phase at 3 to 6 months old, and at 18 months had no idea that retrieving meant bringing something back to me – much more fun to take it further away, whether squeaky ball or favourite frisbee, so i had to walk to throw it for him. Sometimes I’m convinced he was working at training me, not the other way around. But in so doing, a bond was firmly formed.
So separation anxiety is for dogs. Wrong. I managed pretty well to hide from Jackson the fact I’d of course be worrying about his transatlantic trip, and everything that was involved building up to it. Picked him up from kennels after the walking vacation, got a huge welcome from him. So excited. I think he was pleased to see me too, but then he’d eaten all his food, walked twice a day in the countryside he loves so much, and got a whole lotta love from Morven, the kennel owner. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, when she said he was welcome any time, that this was his last visit. Then we jumped (yes he jumped ) into the car in the pouring rain to begin 6 hours on the road.
Jackson sat up, seemingly fixing in his mind the image of the kennels, the countryside, of Crieff. Looking out with unaccustomed attention at his surroundings. I didn’t cry. He didn’t either. This was where his first year and a half had shaped him, shaped me if I’m honest. Where we’d both become something different. Where we’d begun something of a nucleus of a start of a possible, now undeniable, partnership. This was truly happening. We were off.
The now familiar trip south went well, arriving in time for a good walk to finish the day and stretch all six of our legs. The sun came out. The evening came and went, and soon enough it was the morning and collection day.
At the end of the assigned two hour window, his chauffeur Rosie arrived in the PetAir van with VIP written everywhere physically and metaphorically. Checks of the paperwork, assurances of every care being taken, familiar bits and bobs for his crate and a cheery-nearly-but-not-teary goodbye. I held it together. For his sake I told myself. Within a matter of hours he arrived at the Windsor kennels, and I was well on my way to Edinburgh airport to catch my own flight to New York City ahead of him. More preflight checks for him and me, and I just kept hoping he was loving the attention rather than being confused about my absences.
The next day I flew to Newark, NJ, to be ready to meet and greet when he flew out on April 1st. Becky’s car was nowhere near big enough to take his crate. I saw that the crate he was picked up in was plenty big , but too huge to fit in anything but a truck or van. So we arranged for the agent taking him through customs to take responsibility for it. And maybe more importantly I didn’t want him to spend any longer ‘behind bars’ than necessary. The following day we’d be meeting Jackson with a car not too unfamiliar, hoping his experience had been smooth and settled, then heading to the state of Pennsylvania where he’d be truly settling for the foreseeable future. For life. And a life to live. With us in the US.
International-Eyes.org 