A Long Day by HMX
Today we had the joy of picking up Oppenheimer from the airport. He had an 8:40 am flight out of Dallas and arrived in Phoenix at 9:25 am. We had planned on being at the airport at 9:25 am, but the state of Arizona and the local transit authority sought otherwise. Needless to say, we sat in traffic for over an hour while driving a course no more than 5 miles. We arrived at the airport shortly after ten and had to wait another 15 or so minutes while the lady at the American Eagle baggage counter helped another customer. All the while, Oppenheimer was sitting in his cage and we could hear him whine every so often.It was a pretty gut-wrenching experience and Blythe made several comments regarding the poor caged puppy she didn’t know (at the time) was hers. Oppenheimer wasn’t originally suppose to arrive until Wednesday, the 22nd, but rising temperatures caused the breeder and myself to think that it might be best to get him here while it was still cooler and closer to the temperatures in Oklahoma. We pushed the date up to Saturday, the 18th, and I kept quiet as I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.
In due order, we finally made it to the ticket counter where Blythe was momentarily distracted by the distressed puppy as I proceeded to provide identification that would allow us to take our new puppy home. A quick glance at the markings on the cage and overhearing my conversation at the counter alerted her to the true nature of the mysterious puppy in the crate. I smiled at my small deceit and the success to which my plan had been pulled off. The lady behind the counter was very friendly and told us it would be alright to take Oppenheimer out while we finished up the paperwork.
I was shocked and pleased to find that I did not need my diagonal cutters to remove the zip-tie I was told would be on the crate. While we were in traffic, the lady whose name I currently don’t recall had taken Oppie out and allowed him a bit of freedom while he awaited his new owners. She even told us that we could let him run about in the back room and relieve himself, if necessary, before we took him to the car. Before we could take her up on the offer, she remembered that Terminal 3, where we were, had a small dog park and gave us instructions on how to get there, even offering to watch the dog carrier for us until we came back.
A short trip through baggage claim and several stops to allow people to look at Oppie found us in the dog park where the grass (as the lady had postulated) was taller than Oppie, but it didn’t stop him from working off some energy from his flight. He did his business, we retrieved his carrier and made our way to the car, making a few new friends along the way. A quick stop at Fry’s Electronics scored us a 4GB SD card for my phone so we could continue to take pictures and we were off to our next destination.
There, Oppie got to meet the Dachshunds of Doom, an 8yr old, 3yr old, 2yr old and 2 near 4 month olds. At first they were a bit loud as we brought this new stranger into the domain but a trip outside for the ring leader quickly reigned them in. We spent several hours there with Oppie sleeping and exploring while trying to not get mauled by the 4 dachshund who seemed overly eager to figure out what this new, tiny, thing was. The 5th, older one, didn’t much care and seemed to be grateful that she didn’t have to deal with the two puppies with more energy than she cared to deal with.
Things went well, Oppie played a bit with the two other puppies and we finally said our goodbyes. We brought Oppie home, at long last, and he has spent the hours since then enriching our lives. We’ve learned that he really enjoys to chew on pants and doesn’t stray far from underfoot when we are walking around. Overall, he is a pretty good boy and hasn’t chewed on much other than our pants and socks (while we were still wearing them) and my hand. He has a small scratch on his right eye, but the breeder has assured me that it should be okay. We’ll find out for sure on Monday after he makes his first visit (with us) to the vet. Tomorrow I am going to test how well he does with no one around and see if I can’t start on the arduous process of house training him. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on any progress made. Until then you can look at pictures here, videos here or follow his activities, M – F, here.
