It's been a long time since the last post!
Last we met, Hershey had gone back to Toronto with Chris and was getting along famously with his family and their dog Tess. I came back to Toronto on the 28th and found that she had chipped her side-incisor while wrestling with Tess! It didn't seem to hurt her, but it looked bad, the pulp was exposed - which (when we looked online) meant that it could get infected - the tooth needed to come out or some crazy denture-like cap would need to be put in.
We took her to Chris' old family vet the next day and the vet gave us antibiotics and told us that it would be way cheaper to have her tooth removed in Edmonton - we booked an appointment for when we returned home, and let it be. Her tooth didn't seem to bother her unless she was playing tug, so we simply had to put some of her toys away. She still got to wrestle with Tess - they became best dog friends!
Tess got a lot of exercise with Hershey - when we first arrived in Toronto she was all stiff and had trouble getting up on the couch or bed, but as you can see, she had no problems after 2 weeks of intensive dog fun!
The rest of the holidays went really well - we were able to enjoy the city while Chris' parents took care of Hershey. She never totally warmed up to Chris' sister, but she only came and visited a few nights over our holidays.
Now, the ordeal of coming back home. The 7th of January was the first time there was any real ice and snow during our whole vacation. It was awful driving to the airport - cars had gotten into accidents or slid off the road all over the place. Hershey was good in the car, given that she knew something was up. We popped her into her crate at the airport and she had to stay in there no matter what (airport regulations). There was a very long lineup of people at the West Jet counter and so Chris went to check to see if we were supposed to get in line with everyone else or if there was a different line that we should join. We were told to stay in the regular line, and if we were still in line about 20 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave, we were to find that man, and he'd help us out. Well... It didn't work out that smoothly.
The woman who was supposed to float around the line answering questions and pulling people who's flights were about to leave didn't know a damn thing. She screwed up - and so people weren't pulled for the Calgary flight that was leaving 15 minutes before ours. Chris asked her 20 minutes before our flight what we were supposed to do (because the man he spoke to disappeared) and after a good 5 minutes of waiting, put us in another line. We went, dog, suitcases and all to this line where we would be second to be served. BUT the clerk LEFT and didn't come back - ever! We waited for a full 10 minutes there - asking what the hell was going on. Meanwhile, given that the flight was due to leave in less than 10 minutes (and no one else was pulled from the line), chaos erupted. People were shouting, pushing their way around, and there was only 1 clerk left in line! I tried to stay calm and called West Jet on my cellphone to see if any other flights were available for us to bring Hershey (only 3 dogs are allowed per flight) - because we were overhearing that people would get to Edmonton, but their luggage wouldn't. I don't care about my regular luggage, but we can't have Hershey be lost! They didn't seem to understand that at the airport, but the person on the phone was much nicer. She tried to help, but told us that the first available flight would be leaving from Hamilton in 2 days! Not good. In the end, the clerk was able to help us get on our regular flight, but we couldn't wait to make sure the Hershey got collected by the West Jet people. Luckily, Chris' parents were still there and so they kept an eye on her and made sure she got picked up. We ran to the airplane and I was able to see the luggage being put on the plane. They were closing the door to the plane and still adding luggage - I wanted to make sure Hershey got on okay... But they were beginning the safety demonstration. They told me to sit down, which I did, but I was on my last nerve, and sort of snapped "Fine, but you guys lost my dog!" to which the snooty flight attendant said "I didn't loose your dog, honey" I burst into tears. The other attendant gave me Kleenex, and the poor 8-year old girl next to me tried to comfort me too. Chris wrang out the attendant and made him apologize to me, and a bit later, the other attendant checked with the baggage guys to make sure that 3 dog crates were received (they had), but it was only when a girl 3 rows down from us, who we happened to chat with when we were getting into the plane, saw Hershey's crate get loaded on, that I could relax.
We got to Edmonton a little late, but it was an okay flight - Our friend had waited for us very patiently and was very helpful getting Hershey's crate into his van (she had another bathroom accident, but she had been in the stressful situation for over 6 hours) and when the PA announcement that several suitcases were not going to come out on the luggage carousel, Chris happened to be at the baggage service desk, which was great luck. We filled our missing reports and got on our way home finally!
We gave Hershey a bath, Chris cleaned out her crate, and then we all finally got to rest for a while.
Monday our luggage came around 6 pm at night!
Tuesday Hershey had to go to the Vet with Chris to get her bloodwork done - the vet was fantastic apparently - very patient and calm with Hersh, much much much better than the other crazy vet who spade her. The next day she got dropped off at the vet first thing in the morning for her tooth extraction - it apparently went really well and she was very good the whole time there. She had a stitch in her front gum where her tooth had been, which looked pathetic - but, when we saw what she did to one of her toys (a string of plastic sausages with California Raisin like faces) - things were back to normal! Silly girl!
So, she's been doing really well - getting to play a lot with us, going on some walks and doing clicker training, this weekend, we hope to go to the dog park again! Hershey, while she misses Tess and Toronto, sure seems to be happy to be back home too!
