<p>on a related note, on my flight to Europe two weeks ago, a young man with a cat in a hard sided carrier, ended up getting booted off plane because carrier would not shove sufficiently under seat in front of him to satisfy flight attendant (window seat). Can’t blame him for being upset, as he had used an airline approved carrier …and then airline changed to older plane, so it didn’t fit as well.
Frankly, it went far enough IMHO and the guy still had legroom, but flight attendant was being a bit “diligent”. Apparently airline was re-booking them on a bigger plane the next day. He was calmer than I would have been. Felt sorry for poor kitty and thought airline could have accommodated a bit, as there were a few empty seats on the plane.<br>
And this delayed our already late flight with the discussion/consultations/disembarking…</p>
<p>How horrible, gosmom! Meanwhile, the poor kitty had to pee somewhere… Can’t wait for D to bring her two cats form her overseas “second hometown”. :eek:</p>
<p>Keep us posted, Teri! Keeping fingers crossed for your dog to get along with the guest. :)</p>
<p>When we got our first cavalier and she was about 8 months old, just a little girl, we took her on a trip with us. It included two legs each way, three hours each. We paid the additional cost for her, put her in a carrier…and as soon as we took off, we laid her on our laps for the entire time until before landing. We put a blanket on top of her, and she just snuggled there, unmoving, the entire time. The flight attendants never noticed, even when they served us food and drink. We almost got discovered when the kids in the row beside us caught a glimpse and started squealing about a dog. We knew that if the flight attendants noticed, we’d have to put her into her carrier and listen to her cry. This way, everyone was happy, and she barely even moved.</p>
<p>My little bit of advise: put a leash on your animals until you get through security. We were behind a young man with a very scared cat awhile ago. I thought the cat was going to escape his arms when he removed the cat from the carrier to go through security. It would have been total chaos if that had happen.</p>
<p>The meet and greet went well; getting there, however, ended up being quite a disaster. I have two routes to take to the airport, the one going through the city a bit shorter - I take it when I know there’s no traffic going into the city (listening to the traffic updates on the radio). However, I reached a point where the traffic was stop and go, so I turned my radio back to the traffic station. Ends up I missed a serious accident by about five minutes (had I been five minutes ahead of time I would have seen it happen). Reading today’s newspaper, I learned a semi truck had hit the center concrete wall on my side of the expressway, flipped and overturned on the other side of the expressway, and was leaking fuel. I was about a half mile from the accident when the road turned into a parking lot. I saw emergency vehicles (at least 20) coming from four or five different suburbs. They were also saying an electric line was down! If I’d had to get away from it quickly, I would have had to abandon my car and run for it. I was actually kind of scared. Cops had to divert traffic off the expressway in both directions (thank God for my GPS which automatically reroutes me if I make a different turn); I was about four or five cars deep when the cops arrived near where I was to divert the traffic. I seriously had never seen any sort of rescue experience like that before. So obviously I was late picking them up, and knew to take the other route home.</p>
<p>Pooch and my four-legged creature have been getting along OK and we had fun watching them check each other out last night when we got home. But when it was bedtime and our dog realized when we all went to bed that the visitor got to go upstairs and sleep with D1, he did not like being in his crate (wondering what he was missing upstairs with all this company), and barked for about 30 minutes. I finally caved and brought him upstairs - in a year, this was the first time he’s ever slept in our bed with us. I know… I just set a very bad precedent! H was out playing poker last night and didn’t get in until we were all asleep, so he was definitely surprised when he got upstairs!</p>
<p>We’re heading out this morning to a local breakfast place that allows dogs on the patio, and their patio IS heated, and open, so… another adventure (although we have taken our dog there before and he liked it).</p>