The place was rather large with numerous kennels. Our kids were put into a large one so they could all be together. They were so excited to see us that as soon as we came into view, they broke into an uproar of screams, howling, and whining which then sets off the rest of the big dogs in that row of kennels. There was some deafening barks! I guess the dogs are not allowed to wear their collars so our kids were “naked” which is probably a good idea in case they started to rough house and the collar is the first point of attack. Well, that or the back legs. And we've seen enough times with other dogs that get their tooth stuck in the collars.
We walked them to one of the several fenced pens to let them run around, fortunately the vet had already inspected them otherwise we would have just been able to visit them in their kennel. They quickly did their business on the grass, which made us wonder if they'll go on the concrete floor of the outdoor run part of their kennel as they're suppose to. We had two little white dogs to our left, which caught Senna's attention and she could have cared less about us at that point. And to our right was a beautiful male Siberian Husky. We struck up a conversation with the owner/breeder and found out that her other 8 month old female was there too but because the quarantine vet could not pick up the microchip using the scan, she was given the option of being destroyed or shipped back to the states. So she's being shipped back. It was just very sad to hear after that whole process, which is rather expensive, the poor dog has to endure another 20+ hours of crate and flight time.
Fortunately for our kids, they cleared all the quarantine requirements to be imported, whew! I was especially worried since I handled the whole process myself and the instruction pages from Australia's AQIS is about 10 pages long with something like 15 steps and they all have specific time frames and required USDA endorsements. I hadn't had any luck finding online anybody that did it themselves as well but rather I kept coming up with people who hired pet transport companies. So that made me worried since I kept thinking that maybe it was so difficult that people didn't do it themselves but rather hired companies to do it.
We met several of the quarantine personnel and they were all very very nice. Apparently Senna already made herself well known because she squawked and cried the whole way from the airport. Lucky for her she's cute! It definitely made me feel better knowing that after only a few hours in quarantine, so far everyone we'd talked to already knew their names and which one was which. We expressed our concern that it was still rather cold here and Sete is particularly sensitive to the cold. They agreed stating that she's so lean it's probably hard for her to stay warm so they would put down extra blankets.
After letting them run around the grassed pen area, we took them back to the kennel and inspected their enclosed area which is only about 3 ft by 3 ft with an elevated doggy bed piled with blankets and an old round dog bed under a heat lamp. Glancing into the neighboring dog's enclosed area, we definitely knew our kids were getting some special attention. The other dogs had just a wooden slate as a bed with a thin blanket. Unlike our dog with their hammock like dog bed and at least 4 layers of blankets!
We played with them in their kennels up until the end of the visiting time at 4 PM. It was so heart wrenching to walk away from them because they started crying! Not just their usual whining or howling but a sad mournful crying. We considered breaking them out at that point......
- julie
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