Wally and I have been back from our trip to Spain for weeks now and I have been procrastinating about recounting our adventures. This is largely because all the most dramatic aspects of the story revolve around Wally’s digestive tract and I have to ask — Does anyone really care to know about these things? In the past I’ve been a harsh critic of scatology of any kind in literature. But I see no way around the fact that this is a story largely about poop and pee, and other dog-lovers will likely understand that, so I think I just have to hold my nose and dive in. (Oh God, it’s starting already.) If you missed the first installment of this saga, it’s here.
Wally had his final travel exam at the vet eight days before our flight, the window prescribed by USDA regulations. The ensuing report would be submitted digitally and the certified paperwork would be shipped back by air express in time for our Tuesday afternoon flight. The examination itself was perfunctory, and Wally had already been microchipped and re-vaccinated against rabies.
I was mainly concerned about checking one last time to confirm that Wally would make weight at the ticket counter. He had been on a strict diet since March to ensure that he and his carrier together weighed no more than 8 kilograms, the limit for him to travel with me in the cabin and not in cargo hold. In the intervening months he had lost about five pounds, a quarter of his body weight, which was such an improvement on so many levels that I felt ashamed of my years of defensiveness about his girth.
The last weekend before the trip I drove up to my sister Nancy’s in New York State so we could attend a family party for our cousin’s 80th birthday, held in the nursing facility where he has been living for many years. Wally came with me, and joined his cousin Tully in prowling my sister’s beautiful backyard, complete with pool and hot tub, on the edge of the woods. Tully is an elderly dachshund mix and is a bit decrepit these days. He lost his sister and lifelong companion Jess earlier this year and has been having issues with his hearing, sight, mobility, and digestion. Nancy had mentioned a series of bouts with diarrhea, possibly due to his eating some not-very-digestible something-or-other in the backyard. If a dog swallows a bone, or a piece of one, his system goes into overdrive to break it down, resulting in uncontrollable, largely liquid excretions until his stomach is empty.
So, when Wally helplessly pooped all over the passenger seat just as we were pulling up in front of our house in Baltimore Sunday afternoon, and had similar explosive episodes overnight in bed, I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. I cleaned the car, washed the bedding, made a pot of rice, and quietly started to panic. The flight to Spain was coming up Tuesday evening. Could this possibly be over in time?
I began googling compulsively for information I already knew about dog diarrhea — you switch them to a diet of small meals of chicken and rice and it should pass in 24 to 36 hours; if it doesn’t you should call the vet. Because if it’s not a case of wrongful eating, it could be a parasite or a virus. Since my beloved previous dog Beau had been in the throes of severe gastric distress the week before he crossed the rainbow bridge, I had some baggage around this, including flashbacks of his last two nights, when we miserably slept curled up on a towel on the floor.
A concomitant panic attack was already in progress because the USDA paperwork had not showed up yet. Thank God I got an email from my international veterinary consultant bright and early Monday morning alerting me to its arrival. When I zipped over to get it as soon as they opened the doors at 8, I did not mention Wally’s gastric situation. It seemed like it might cause trouble. I did have them refresh me on when and how to dose the sedatives I planned to use, hopefully hypothesizing that a sleeping dog is not a pooping dog. I also located the pee-pads I had used right after Wally’s back surgery, thinking I might need to deploy them. This proved prescient in a way I would not have imagined. (As I type this, I must again sigh at the persistence of execretory plot points in this account.)
My roller bag was already waiting by the front door, so I turned to assembling Wally’s packing list. Our friends in Valencia had sent me photos of the fluffy dog bed they had sweetly purchased in advance of our visit, assuring me they had also laid in supplies of food, treats, and toys. In their days as Wally’s backup caretakers, Mark had been known for possible over-generosity in the treat department — just a little leftover filet mignon here, a bit of honey-baked ham there — so I had already pointed out the importance of adhering to the new diet regime to avoid having Wally get stuck in Valencia long-term, ha ha.
To travel with a small dog to Europe you might need:
- paperwork from an approved vet, including proof of microchip and recent rabies shot
- regulation-compliant travel crate (detachable parts packed separately to game the weigh-in, just a thought)
- leash and carrier sling
- poop bags, pee-pads
- small plastic tubs to serve water and food en route
- kibble and treats
- medications – trazodone and gabapentin for sedation, carprofen in case of back trouble
And so, back to GI matters. What happens in the best-case scenario of dog diarrhea is that by the second or second-and-a-half day, after the stomach is empty, elimination stops altogether, ideally resuming normally on Day 3. This is how it played out, so by the time the driver my neighbor Karin and I had hired to take us to Dulles showed up at 1:30 on Tuesday the 17th, I was pretty sure we were out of the woods on that issue. Since our driver had let us know that he was not a dog person, and was clearly a bit nonplussed about having one in his vehicle, I assured him Wally was a great traveler.
If only I had waited to give Wally his medication until we were at the gate in Dulles, as the vet had suggested. But because he seemed a little antsy, squirming around in his brand new, fur-lined pet sling, I jumped the gun. Big mistake. At first he kept managing to spit out the pills, then they didn’t sit well on his empty stomach. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. Fortunately we were able to completely clean up the milky-looking vomit with some excellent lemon-coconut antibacterial wipes Karin had on hand. For the remainder of the ride, she checked for any molecules we might have missed while I focused on distracting and cheering up the driver with long-form essay questions about his immigration from Egypt, his children, his business, and his thoughts about the World Cup.
At the airport, months of preparation and anxiety came to a close with the astonishing realization that the staff of TAP Air Portugal had absolutely no intention of weighing Wally and his crate. No, I am not kidding. They did carefully check the paperwork, and had me sign some documents attesting that I had followed all the rules. Meanwhile, the sedatives took hold, and by boarding time, Wally was curled up in his crate fast asleep. Since there was no canine relief area in the terminal, his last Baltimore pee would have to hold him through the overnight flight to our layover in Lisbon.
However, the appealing aromas of the dinner service on the flight reached my furry gourmet even through his drugged slumber, and he began to whimper plaintively. As you can guess by now, I whipped him out of there and slipped him into the sling to share a few bites, planning to re-crate him whenever someone told me to. But they never did! Not on this flight, the next one, or any of the return flights. Which was a very nice surprise, because that never happens on domestic flights. Those friendly Southwest jokesters turn steely fast.
At our layover in Lisbon, we faced a horrifically long line at passport control — but there was also a canine relief area, right there beside the snaking chutes. Call it a win. Lisbon also featured a large food court-style waiting area for passengers in transit. They make a fine Bloody Mary.
From there it was smooth sailing to El Chikito, the little restaurant whose address we were advised to give our taxi driver, as Mark and Jill live on one of many colorfully cobbled pedestrian streets in Colon, their Valencia neighborhood. Our hosts were there to meet us and Wally put on the celebration I had imagined when I planned the trip, several minutes of full-body wagging and dancing, accompanied by yelps of glee.
Up in Mark and Jill’s marble-floored, floor-to-ceiling windowed, second-floor apartment on Calle Doctor Romagosa, all three of us visitors were installed in our palatial accommodations and immediately began our immersion course in why one might want to retire to Valencia, Spain.
For the human contingent, this includes gorgeous weather, elegant architecture, beautiful beaches, fantastic dining and shopping at reasonable prices, welcoming locals and a thriving community of expats who all would like nothing more than to make plans to meet up for drinks and tapas. Compared to their quiet life in Hampden, Mark and Jill have become social butterflies.
For Wally, the adventure began with mastering the logistics of the double-sided elevator, which he seemed to quite enjoy, and exploring the options for peeing in the greenery-free streets. (The custom here is for dog-owners to carry a bottle of water to wash up post-op.) The grassy and wooded expanses of the city’s huge Jardin del Turia were close enough to visit almost every day. Most restaurants were fine with him in the carrier sling or under the table, and he gave them the thumbs-up as well. Or would, if he had thumbs. He did seem to agree with me that the shrimp is better in Spain.
Though I’d heard there are a lot of dachshunds in Valencia, we didn’t run into them in force until we attended the impressively huge and inclusive Gay Pride parade, where among the many doxies we saw was Wally’s nine-month-old puppy twin.
After four days in Valencia, including a glorious beach day at a fancy oceanfront club with a pool, chaise lounges and umbrellas, Karin and I went on to Barcelona by train, leaving Wally in the care of his old pals. He wouldn’t have been able to go to Sagrada Familia anyway, which is as big a wow as one has always heard. But also true are reports that the place is completely overrun by tourists and at this point mostly looking to make a quick buck, whether via the $15 per-person, per-night hotel surcharge, the $18 pitchers of cherry Kool-Aid they call sangria, or the high priced, quick-turn snacks that have replaced serious local food in many of the stalls of the Boqueria. The day I got back from my trip, the New York Times reported that the official message of the city’s new commissioner for tourism is “Not One Tourist More.” This did not surprise me, though I’m still glad we went and I especially loved our beach days in Sitges, just a short metro ride from downtown. From our vest pocket of a room:
At this point, Karin flew home from Barcelona with her son Riley, who had joined for this leg of the trip, and I returned to Valencia even more attuned to the sunny, laid back hospitality that seems to emanate from every doorway. If you think I’m overdoing it, go see for yourself.
Though everything seemed to have gone smoothly in my absence, my first morning back I learned the hard way that Wally had snapped up and chowed down something questionable off the street the day before. This round of GI madness began on the kitchen floor and continued with follow-up episodes on the white living room rug and on the sidewalk beside a restaurant. Wally was visibly humiliated. I was mortified. Mark and Jill were good sports, as was the waiter who ran out with a bucket of water for immediate sloshing.
This is not something I thought of when I planned the trip and the only good news is that this episode wrapped up as quickly as the previous one. Extreme vigilance about “street food” is recommended.
The last hurrah for Wally in Spain was our visit to the dog beach, Playa Pinedo, on our next-to-last day in town. It’s clearly a favorite with locals, a sprawling expanse with no entrance fee or upscale concessions, just people with umbrellas and beach chairs and towels, perfectly clear and calm water, and three little cafes in a row at one end. Unfortunately two Australian shepherds whose attention Wally had drawn with his run-toward, run-away, bark-loudly routine suddenly went crazy, falling on Wally as if they intended to rip him to pieces. I screamed and threw my entire body over him, sending up a prayer that they would not now go after me. Bizarrely, the dogs’ owner, a mostly nude middle aged sunbather with stringy hippie hair and bazooms that indicated a long history of bralessness, did not do or say a damn thing. Mark tried shouting some reprimands, unsure how to intervene. Fortunately the dogs backed off.
Hearts pounding, and not at all metaphorically, Wally and I took several minutes to recover. After a healing dip in the water, we continued our treatment with a gigantic beer and a tuna tostada at one of the cafes.
The trip home began with a 3:30 am Uber to the airport and went on for another 21 hours, throughout which Wally was a saint. Since there were no canine relief facilities in Valencia and the one in Lisbon was in a different terminal, that pee-pad I had packed came in very handy during our five hour layover. That was when I gave him his drugs, which worked perfectly: he slept all the way to Dulles, so peacefully that the dreadlocked young man in the seat beside me didn’t realize there was a dog in my lap until we were landing. And though Dulles also lacks a relief area, there we were finally able to go outside. Our driver pulled up as scheduled, we spent a couple hours in Baltimore-Washington rush hour traffic, and we were home.
I don’t know if I will be taking my dog on another international trip anytime soon, but this was one for the books. Despite all he doesn’t know and can’t understand about what just happened to him, I’m guessing Wally will never forget it.
