I aenten't dead

[commodorified]

Though I do presently have the flu. Which probably means a few posts in the next couple of days.

At the moment I'm researching the best way to get the dog (Oh, heck, um, hi, everyone, we got a dog! This is Bogart!)




Anyway, that's where I've been. Glued to a dog who's had a stressful start in life and is still half-convinced he's going to be taken away from us and moved to another shelter cage at any moment. It's a lot.

So. Researching ways to get Bogart out west with me when I next go to see Mom. If that seems the best option — like a lot of rescues he's anxious, and he bonded to me first, so the question is is he best without me but with the family or with me for the long visit but crated for the trip.

Most dog-owners I've asked about flying with dogs too big for the cabin have said, basically, "well, if it's your ONLY choice ..." and that has been consistent across many people who don't know each other, so.

Via Rail allows dogs on the Canadian, under certain conditions.

A test-run seems indicated once he's doing better with the crate thing.

Do I have any friends in Toronto or Montreal who would enjoy having me and a 40lb dog to visit for probably two nights? He is good with kids and adults and possibly TOO fond of cats — he tries to bring them his toys.

He is *great* with other dogs and that's not me being fond - he continually surprises me by his diplomacy and capacity to get shy or tiny dogs to play with him. He was in the system for a year before he got to us (and a stray dumped in the Everglades before that) and so finds the human environment puzzling quite often - stairs and leashes took a fair bit of explaining - but it turns out he has vast experience in group dog situations and is a joy to walk off-leash.

He's not as good about distinguishing toys from not-toys, but I stay on top of him fairly well and would likely keep him out for most of the days anyway.

Comments

[legionseagle]

I mean,

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I mean, <lj="recessional"> may well be right there are ways to get round it these days. But it's very difficult to over-estimate the atavistic issues about rabies and The Continent in my childhood (I'll not lie -- these are also, I suspect, more relevant to Brexit than I would like to think.) We had PSA films as a child which emphasised the horror of INFECTED! FOREIGN DOGS!

[commodorified]

Well, I'm not sure it's more horripilating than how *I* feel about rabies, so I'm sympathetic. Rabies is TERRIFYING. It's an awful way for anything to die.

OTOH I'm not keen to arrive in the UK with no obvious way to turn around and go back and find that some aspect of the paperwork is not in order. See above, dog has separation anxiety so kennelling in isolation not an option.

On the grasping hand, have you considered Ottawa for your Late Spring Through Early Fall visiting needs? (I do know planes and Partner don't mix, so I suppose it'd have to be a business thing.)

[perennialanna]

Well into my adolescence - I can't remember which tabloid produced the Perfect Headline in "Rabid French Bat Bites Pregnant Woman In Kent", but I'm guessing the Express. Made a change from Diana's effect on house prices and winter temperatures.

[commodorified]

Can bats cross the Channel? I thought they had fairly small territories.

I mean, as you say, the Express, but is it even possible?

[perennialanna]

If it did fly across the Channel I'm surprised it had the energy to bite anyone at all. Perhaps it was more like Exhausted Pregnant Bat Plummets Onto Woman With Mouth Open.

My mother still has The Fear about rabid foxes walking through the Channel Tunnel.

[commodorified]

Well, as I said, I can't honestly judge. None of the upstairs cats goes/went outside voluntarily basically EVER (Dreadful enjoys a occasional lounge on the porch on a harness, but only with at least one human handy) and yet we get them their rabies jab *religiously*.

[commodorified]

So what I conclude from all this is, you will all have to come to mine for a Batmoot and Bogart/Dreadful party.

I will order a fatted calf at the word.

[juliet]

I have a friend who used to do Bat Care Stuff & I don't know about the Channel, but bats & rabies is a thing. A very rare thing, and seemingly only in Daubenton's bats, but it does happen -- Bat Conservation Trust say 15 bats found since 1986 with the relevant strain of the virus, out of 15,000 tested, and sadly a bat worker in Scotland died in 2002. These days bat workers are strongly encouraged to get vaccinated.

This does not, of course, mean that the Express story was necessarily true.

[commodorified]

When we did the Moneymusk bat count we were absolutely forbidden to touch or approach the bats, I do recall that.

I mean this is also to protect them from untrained people I assume.