The Woe's of Puppy-Hood!

So the transition down to Costa Rica was not as smooth as one would have hoped, but then again we were moving to a different country so bumps were to be expected.  The major bump was our new sweet dog Molly Paws.  Before you ask "why in the world would you get a dog before moving to another country????"  There really is a good answer!  We actually intentionally got Molly Paws cause we are the proud parents of an only child!  G-man doesn't have siblings to play with, comesirate with about the move or anyone but Jeff and I.  When we decided we were going to move, we decided it would be good for G to have a buddy to move with, not to mention the kid had been begging for a dog for the last 3 years!  So even though super inconvenient we bought a puppy 4 weeks before we left for Costa Rica!

Anyhoo I thought I had everything figured out before we got her as far as paperwork and protocol to getting her to Costa Rica, until it got closer to us leaving. The first issue started because according to the average Golden Doodle size and age, MP was supposed to just travel with us on the plane as a checked bag...well MP is Ginormous for her age and so it was very apparent that she would indeed not be going with us in the cabin.  Frontier does not take pets any other way, so we couldn't even check her as baggage with us.  We then looked into the PetSafe program through United.  Which was a great fit, she could be sent as cargo, we wouldn't have to be on the same flight, except for Costa Rica started this new law a couple of months ago that they sometimes follow and sometimes don't, which consist of requiring a pet permit, hiring a pet broker, paying a cargo tax on the animal, which was all adding up to around $1000!!  What???? I mean I love that sweet dog, but seriously???  It was at this point that Jeff said "You know what we have to do don't you?" No I cautiously answered.  We gotta get rid of her there is no way we are paying more to get her down there than we paid for all 3 of our tickets!!  While I certainly agree it was becoming quite absurd, there is no way in Heaven I could part with the dog, or break it to my poor son who is being ripped away from everything familiar to him that he will also be forfeiting his new dog that he absolutely adores!!

So to make a long story short-ish I ended up buying a new ticket on American airlines so she could come with me as a checked bag, had to fly a different day cause the temperature had to be above 45 degrees (it was 5 degrees when the boys flew out), had to get a special addendum from our pet stating if the temp dropped a couple of degrees below 45 she could still fly, checked in on Thursday the 17th only to be turned away cause there is only 1 plane America Airlines has that can't fit that size kennel and of course that happens to be the flight we were on, so we went back bought a new kennel, tried again the next day and succeeded!  Sadly we were delayed in Dallas for 2.5 hours so poor MP was in the kennel for 13 hours!!  All that is behind us now and we are happy she is here...most of the time!

She is definitely in full fledge puppy mode.  Which means when we go to the beach she eats as much sand as possible and poops sand doodles...ya I said sand doodles.  She also LOVES rolling in the sand after she has been in the ocean which means that those cute blonde curls turn black, and we spend a good 30 min washing her off when we get home.  She chews everything in sight, bites Gentry on a regular basis, knocks over innocent children who think she's cute, escapes from every single blockade we made for her so she can run to our downstairs neighbors trash and scatter it everywhere.  She is definitely in the terrible twos of puppy hood!  The sad part is she's so stinkin big for her age you assume she's older than she is.  She is a real life chewing, slobbering, fury, baby Huey with teeth and they are sharp!  We love her but man will we love when puppy stage is over!!  With all that said is there anything sweeter than a boy and his dog on an evening stroll on the beach?  Na, I don't think so either :)