Pure Joy (14 page)

Personally, I don’t like long, long plane trips. I’m not a fan of flying for twelve hours or longer, or facing huge time differences when I arrive. I’m lucky that I don’t suffer from jet lag, and I’ve discovered that the secret to that, for me, is to break up long trips. So I don’t fly over the Pole when traveling from San Francisco to Paris (which takes about twelve hours). I stop in New York for a night or two, which turns it into a five-hour trip and a six-hour one and gives me the added bonus of visiting with two of my daughters, who live in New York. Breaking the trip up that way is a total win-win for me and seems to avoid jet lag completely. It’s a perfect solution, and as I prefer night flights, I sleep on both flights
(San Francisco to New York, and New York to Paris) and arrive fresh as a daisy. And those two short flights are easy for Minnie too. She wears herself out all day, has all her normal meals, and by the time we board a red-eye flight at ten or eleven p.m. or later, she just curls up in her bag and goes to sleep. And both the winds and time difference are in our favor.

But it’s the return trip from Paris to New York that is a tough one. The flight is long, and nothing is in our favor, except the movies and a decent French meal, neither of which Minnie can enjoy. The winds are against you going west (from New York to California also, but that flight is shorter than the Paris–New York flight), and with rare exceptions, instead of six hours flying to Paris, it’s about an eight-hour flight from Paris to New York, sometimes longer. Add to that two hours in security before the flight, and an hour waiting for bags and going through customs in New York, and it’s an eleven-and-a-half- or twelve-hour adventure. And if the plane is really delayed, as happens often in today’s world, it can be thirteen or fourteen hours. But twelve at best. It’s one of the reasons, other than their size, that I never tried to take any of my Brussels griffons with me. I didn’t want to undertake a twelve-hour trip with an adult dog that had never flown before. She might freak out or bark her way across the Atlantic (and
someone might try to kill me!). In Minnie’s case, she’s grown up traveling and started flying at twelve weeks. And she’s so tiny that she can move about comfortably in her carrying bag. My griffs would have been completely immobilized in the bag and couldn’t even turn around. It always seemed cruel to me to try to take that long flight with them, so I never did—even if I could have put them on a diet and shaved off two pounds for the weight limit, which seemed mean too.

But even for tiny Minnie, twelve hours or longer in her traveling bag seems endless. She has weathered it well, but I can tell that she doesn’t enjoy that leg of the trip, and who could blame her? And it’s always a day flight, so she is confined at a time when she’d normally like to be running around.

I carefully consulted with the vet before the first time I made the return trip, and even the outward-bound flights, and had been told to give her water every two hours and feed her every four hours. When tiny dogs are very young, they can get hypoglycemic, so it’s important to keep them fed and watered. We even have a tube of a vitamin meat paste, and I can put a little dab on my finger, and she loves it.

She’s also very good about not peeing off her Wee-Wee Pad, or in confined spaces, and I was worried about her not going to the bathroom in her bag for so many hours. So on all the long Paris–New York flights, I take her to the bathroom
in her carrying case, let her out, and put her on a Wee-Wee Pad. The theory is to let her move around freely for a few minutes. Great idea, but Minnie doesn’t like it. She stands in the middle of the bathroom, on her Wee-Wee Pad, her legs stiff, and won’t move an inch. She actually likes small, confined spaces, and I think feels safe there. Being let loose on the plane, in the bathroom, is frightening and not fun for her. She won’t move, walk, or pee, she just stands there, staring at me. So it is a very long flight for her, but remarkably she does okay. Instinctively, she won’t drink water, as though she knows she’d have to pee. But I offer water anyway, several times on every flight. I don’t give her canned dog food, but I put kibble in a bowl in the bag, but she eats very little on the plane. I hear her crunch it occasionally. So we manage on the long flight, but I always feel sorry for her. It’s a long trip even for me, and worse for her. I don’t know what we’d do if the flight were longer. I think that’s about as far as I’d take her. So we won’t be flying to Australia anytime soon.

Amazingly, she seems to like her carrying bag that we use for the plane. I would think it makes her feel claustrophobic, but I think it’s actually cozy for her. She often climbs into the bag, just for the fun of it, when we’re at the hotel in New York, or even at home. And she pulled a disappearing act on me one time, when I looked everywhere in the hotel room for her and
couldn’t find her, and thought she’d run away when someone opened the door, and I found her happily asleep in her bag. As much as we travel, it’s now a familiar world for her. And I have discovered that Chihuahuas like small spaces.

Years ago my daughter Victoria called me from New York in a panic. Her teacup Chihuahua had vanished. She had looked everywhere and couldn’t find her, and she was terrified that she had either escaped the apartment or gotten stuck in a small space somewhere and been injured. She called the doorman of her building to ask if someone had seen her. I offered every helpful suggestion I could, and crying miserably over her lost Tallulah, Victoria blew her nose in a tissue, stepped on the garbage can pedal to toss away the tissue, and there, sound asleep, was Tallulah. She had gotten into the garbage can and gone to sleep. She has also hidden in open suitcases. They curl up and just happily go to sleep, while we frantically look for them.

To be sure that no one lets Minnie escape at the hotel, I always leave the Do Not Disturb sign on my door, so an unwitting or careless cleaning person doesn’t leave a door open and let her run away. It just seems safer to keep strangers out when I’m not there. They might also try to pick her up and drop or hurt her without meaning to. She’s hard to resist.

Chihuahuas are also adventurous and have been known to
take off and hit the road. One of Minnie’s favorite games is to have me run around my desk about two hundred times until I catch her. She’s a lot faster and more elusive than I am. (It’s embarrassing to be outsmarted by a two-pound dog!)

Chiquita once escaped from our garden and happily trotted down the street for several blocks before we caught up to her. My other daughter’s Chihuahua, Tallulah, slipped out of her collar, and my daughter ran at full speed in stilettos in New York traffic to catch her. And a friend’s Chihuahua ran away while with a dogsitter and was missing for several days. (She was identified by the nail polish the groomer had put on her toes, since she made her getaway without her collar!)

Because of their size and proportionately tiny necks, which are fragile, all vets recommend harnesses for Chihuahuas instead of collars. And they can also slip out of their collars with an artful turn of the head. They can’t slip out of a harness. So a harness is much safer for them, and reassuring for you. And you should keep your dog’s ID tags on their collar or harness at all times.

In addition, in today’s world of technology, many dog owners put a chip in their dog’s shoulder (a vet can do it easily), and when taken to a vet and scanned, if lost, all your contact information is on the chip. Some owners have their dogs tattooed. And all dogs need license tags in any city, and many
owners have personal ID tags on their collars, with their name and phone number on it.

Being a “belt and suspenders” kind of person, Minnie has an international chip, required for our travel into France, and an American one. She wears a tiny collar with an ID tag on it, and when I’m going to put a leash on her, she wears a harness with an ID tag. And her travel carrier has a tag on it too! I don’t want to take any chances if she gets lost!

Mistaken identification of one’s dog can be embarrassing, as it is with one’s children. I once arrived late at a birthday party that one of my children was attending, saw my child from the back at the table eating birthday cake, swooped down on her and gave her an enormous hug of greeting while standing behind her (I could only see her blond hair, not her face), but I was sure it was my daughter and had no doubt. It was a loving, exuberant moment, except that it turned out not to be my child. I scared the poor unsuspecting (wrong) child half to death. She turned around to look at me midhug as though I was crazy. Oops. Sorry. Not my kid. My children are cursed genetically with a somewhat dubious sense of humor (at every age, almost from birth), so my own child was laughing her head off at my mistake, while watching me from across the table, as I hugged and kissed a stranger. It can happen with dogs too. (Children can be merciless and often enjoy
it when their parents make fools of themselves. Dogs are more charitable about it, and at least don’t laugh and point, and they don’t tell their friends about it later.… “You should have seen my mom—” doing whatever stupid thing you did.)

And it can happen with dogs too. My daughter Victoria came to breakfast one morning, still half asleep, and encountered her dog in the kitchen. Victoria’s fawn-colored Chihuahua Tallulah is very docile, affectionate, and sweet-natured. And as Victoria sat down to eat, her dog growled and barked fiercely at her, not pleased in the least to see her. Victoria looked shocked and upset, and when she reached down to pet her and pick her up, the dog fled and then cowered in the corner (the dog, not Victoria) and continued barking furiously. Victoria was stunned and said, “What’s wrong with Tallulah?” Nothing. My youngest son’s girlfriend has a Chihuahua of the same size and color. The dog didn’t know us well then and at that time regarded us all with hostility and suspicion. (She likes us now.) The girlfriend’s dog happened to be at the house that morning. And one of my other children observed the scene, laughed at Victoria, and said, “That’s not your dog!!” Closer observation then confirmed that it was the visiting Regina, NOT Victoria’s Tallulah. Oh. Oops. Regina eventually calmed down, and Victoria ate her breakfast looking a little sheepish, not to have recognized her own dog, in her
sleepy state. It’s always somewhat embarrassing when you don’t recognize your own dogs or children. (I once tried to pet my neighbor’s two dogs, being walked by a dog walker. As I reached down to them with a friendly greeting, one tried to bite me, while the other one happily lifted his leg on me. They turned out not to be my neighbor’s dogs after all, but a stranger’s dogs, of the same breed.) Try to look closely before hugging or petting children and dogs. The dog or child you are trying to embrace may not be your own. Just a friendly hint from one mother/dog owner to another.

And Minnie has her sneaky moments with her traveling bag too. She seems to consider it her home away from home, which is a good thing since she has to spend time in it when we travel. She never looks upset when I put her in it.

On a recent trip from Paris, after the twelve-hour trip (even I get cranky after such long travel, but she doesn’t), she had an upset stomach. I called the Paris vet, who told me to use the cans of special diet food he’d given me for cases like that, but not give her any dry kibble. I followed his instructions to the letter. Canned food only, no dry food. Minnie usually likes to have a bowl of each twice a day. And when I gave her her dinner, she looked at me as though to say, “Excuse me, you forgot something.” Sorry, Minnie. No kibble. She gobbled up the canned food, and a little while later, she disappeared. But this
time I could see her. Her little bottom was sticking up in the air, her tail was wagging happily. She had dived into her carrying bag, where she remembered she still had a small bowl of dry kibble, which I had forgotten, but she didn’t.

“Minnie!” I said in a slightly stern motherly tone, and she turned to look at me with totally false innocence, as though to say “Me? I’m not doing anything.” Yeah, right. Try that one on someone else. She dove back into the bag, her tail still wagging, and I could hear her loudly crunching the kibble. Every now and then she would stop, give me that totally dishonest look of false innocence, and go back to crunching. I took the kibble away, but she was really funny about it. She slunk out of the bag with a look of “Oh, okay, if you’re going to be that way about it.” As usual, she had me laughing. She is very expressive, everything is written on that little white face, and in those big brown eyes. She has tiny little eyebrows that give her a permanent look of innocence and surprise. And she has a tiny little brown nose.

She’s a good eater now, but sometimes she’s a picky eater. Sometimes she’s just not hungry, as we aren’t, and makes up for it at the next meal or the next day. I no longer worry about it, although I did at first. I’ve since learned that Chihuahuas eat when they’re hungry, and not just because the food is available, like some other breeds. In the beginning, when she
didn’t eat, I’d try to find ways to tempt her. I hand-fed her a few times, although they say you shouldn’t spoil them—they’ll learn quickly just how big a softie you are. (In my case, think marshmallow.) And my assistant, seeing me hand-feed her, scolded me and told me I would spoil her. “Who? Me?” Yeah, me. But I was worried that she’d missed a meal. (I discovered later that if I give her chew sticks to gnaw on, she won’t eat later.) We were even though, because the next time I cruised through the kitchen, I found my assistant putting her food in the microwave to warm it. He loves her too and was just as worried she wasn’t eating. And warmed food was going to spoil her just as surely as my hand-feeding her. She was giving him those Gypsy eyes that told him how mistreated she was, getting cold food straight out of a can. Now she eats on her own, with no help from me, and we don’t warm her food. And she eats just fine.