Knyaz Serebraniya Iz Kitez Grada(right)
Best Puppy in Match 10/14/02
Judge: Gail Bunham
Suntiger Greyhounds
The puppies left Semperafol, Crimea, Ukraine on October 5th; destination San Francisco, Ca, USA.. Their departure was delayed a week due to the "misplacing" of the Vari Kennels by DHL.
They boarded the train in Semperafol (with many kisses and hugs from their Ukrainian "parents", Julia and Sergey). At Kiev, the puppies were handed over to the KLM personnel, walked, watered and fed and in a few hours were loaded on KLM aircraft - several hours then into Amsterdam. They were checked into KLM's Pet Hotel to spend the night. Here they were vet checked, pyschologically checked, and had a "room" of their own. They then boarded KLM aircraft - final destination SFO - 2 p.m. Monday October 8.
Those three days were definitely NOT fun! What if they "got loose" at Kiev? Were they warm enough? Were they cool enough? Did they really water and feed them? What if they did not pass their vet-check in Amsterdam? What if they were frightened and did not pass psych exam? Fortunately for us, the terrorists were busy in Bali. Three days in transit? I thought they were the optimum age to travel so far (12 weeks) - what if my former experience in bringing puppies from England was just good luck?
We left Somerset at 9 a.m. Oct 8th, for SFO...(what if we had a flat? or some wreck or other detained us?) Leaving Tracy, we realized we were WAY ahead of time and there are the Outlet Stores and they have a Big Dog! And Big Dog is having a 50% off sale! So loaded up on toys for the babies...squeakies looking like Big Dog, footballs, Big Dog edition of newspaper, etc and I selected a pink collar for Kadril' - embroidered " It's Not Easy Being a Princess" and a blue one for Coco "Puppy Love".
We dined at the Golden Arches and then wended our way through SFO's cargo area (and that is not fun!) and finally found KLM - 45 minutes early! There we sat, getting nervouser and nervouser. Finally a pickup rounded the corner, in the bed of which were two 500 Vari Kennels with two little faces peering out of each! Thank God...alive! Offloaded on to the loading dock, there they sat...as New Moms have to go to Customs (some two miles away) and get them cleared before we can take them out of the crates. We filled their water dishes and stuck our fingers through the doors and left for customs. Back very quickly, releases in hand - NO ONE was visible on the loading dock...so we started to open the crates and, out of nowhere, appears a very fat man, jiggling towards us, saying "You must sign the releases in front of me" - yeah OK, so where were you? Well, I didn't say that...scribbled my name, Christina handed me Kadril' and I settled in the back of the van with her, then each puppy was handed to me in the van - Lana and Christina dismantled the crates, shoved them in the van and we were off to Nancy's house (about 20 minutes from the airport). Lana and I amazed at these four friendly, lovey little tykes, kissing us, jumping up on the bed and back to the van floor! Beautiful puppies! Soon at Nancy's they exited the van and ran and ran and ran! (Also pooped and pee'd.) Fed them a tiny bit and thanking Nancy for the pitstop, we left for the hills. The puppies slept! Thanks to the good run and their "business" at Nancy's!!
We arrived home in twilight - the puppies inspected their new digs, ate dinner, checked out their beds, ate dinner, jumped up in our laps, ate dinner, and finally fell sleep on their baby beds, exactly as they arrived, Coco and Kadril' - Angel and Vanya.
Never having had any tummy upsets and somewhat adjusted to California time, and somewhat lead-trained
I just received word that, half a world away, brother Kuz'ma, in Ukraine, Oct 20th, was Best Puppy exhibit. And THAT is fun!!