Day 15 - September 29

Flying home!  So today we leave the safety and comfort of the school and head home to see how things are really going to go.  For Bill and I, this means getting onto an airplane and flying back to Vancouver.

I was up at 6 am to grab a shower and make sure everything was packed.  At 6:30 Courtney called to make sure I was awake and offered to do a room check for me.  I knew I needed her help to find Gonzo’s ball and she also found a t-shirt I had thrown on my bed and forgotten about. 

Courtney offered to take my suitcase on the elevator.  A very welcome offer.  I headed downstairs for the last time.  Gloria was there and offered to take Zeigler and Gonzo out to the courtyard for a run.  That way they will burn off some energy and relieve themselves as well.  No dog can run without getting rid of everything that is inside of them.  We had a little snack with Betty who was catching a morning train home as well.

At the airport Courtney stayed with the van while Gloria helped us check in, made sure there were seats for the dogs and walked us to security.  Bill was travelling with his friend Richard so we wouldn’t need assistance on the other side of security.  After hugging Gloria good bye, we headed through security.  I was in the lead so got my stuff all in the bins, remembered to take Gonzo’s harness pouch off (and my Bluetooth headphones I always forget about).  I explained to the gal at security what I wanted to do, which was to put my dog into a sit and ask him to wait.  I would walk through, hopefully not beep, and then call my dog through.  For some reason I did beep so I had to be scanned.  I called Gonzo through and he came right away.  They let me keep a hold of the leash while they scanned me.  Their scanners must be more sensitive because my belt, that never used to make the thing beep, now does.  We gathered up all our stuff and headed off for our gate.  The airport is very crowded so it was neat to see how Gonzo managed it.  He did pretty well.  Once we were comfortably seated at our gate there was an announcement that our gate had been changed.  “Bill and Gary, you have more time to use your dogs in an airport,” crackles the imaginary announcement in my head.  So we haul ourselves and our stuff to the next gate, at the opposite end of the corridor.  Once we were comfortably seated, we heard our names called.  Wow, they were pre-boarding already.  We headed onto the plane and found out Gonzo and I had a bulkhead seat on one of those big 777 jets.  Tons of room for everyone because there was no issue with Gonzo getting his seat space.

We settled in and the nice thing was the person in the third seat of the row was a dog lover so no worries about Gonzo being annoying.  Gonzo did great. At the school they told us to not worry if the dog gets up, but just to ask it to sit and lie down again.  If you try to comfort it, you’re actually saying, “You’re right, this is a scary thing.”  He was up and down but never seemed nervous.  Every now and then my seatmate would tell me that Gonzo was sticking out into the aisle, so I’d just call him back and get him to sit and lie down again.  The challenging part was when I had to go to the washroom.  If I’m with someone I know, I would just leave the dog with them, but since I wasn’t, I had to take him with me.  We headed forward to the washroom.  Oops, I went through one too many curtains and ended up in first class.  That caught the attention of the flight attendant.  He quickly came to me to show me where the bathroom was.  There was no room for Gonzo.  I tried but he backed away and asked me if I was nuts.  The flight attendant offered to hold him for me.  Probably didn’t see that in his days work.  Once back in our seat comfortably, we both relaxed for the rest of our flight.

As usual we were quick to leave the plane, and waited for Bill and Richard at the top of the flightway.  We headed off and before we had gone 25 feet I had messed up.  Richard had said to go left, but I thought it was just seats to go around so I let Gonzo go forward and then turn left.  However, that put us inside a restaurant that I didn’t know was there.  Anyway, I got that figured out and found Richard and Bill again and we headed off.  The airport was extremely crowded and Gonzo was having some troubles.  He cut me too close to a person and my foot hit the back of her foot.  I corrected him and we moved on.  I found a fellow passenger to follow.  As we got to the up escalator, I heard Bill and Richard behind me.  We went up, through the double security doors, down the escalator and got our bags.  Bill’s son offered me a ride home, which was awesome, so we headed out.  The first thing we needed to do was find a place for our dogs to relieve themselves.  We ended up having to go up some stairs, through the parkade and down some stairs.  This is challenging with a guide dog on one side and a heavy suitcase in my other hand.  Anyway, we got down there, unharnessed our dogs and they had a good pee.  Then it’s back up those stairs with suitcase in hand.  We all squished into Spenser’s Honda Accord and head on our way.

After getting out of the car at my apartment building and saying my good byes, I see if Gonzo wants to go to the washroom again, but it has started to rain and he is keen to get inside.  We head up to the apartment.  We go in and Gonzo goes running around the apartment.  Susan greets him and I let him do some sniffing around the place.  He quickly finds the toy box and the squeaking begins.  Our school recommends keeping the dog on a leash in your house when you get back, but I’ve had no issues with Gonzo having accidents indoors, so I let him off the leash and he goes nuts playing.

The new adventure has begun with Gonzo joining our family for real now that we’re back in Vancouver.