...(of the continuing) Adventures of Una in the New World

Una flew out of Prague International Airport on Lufthansa Flight, (her ticket tells the tale of the trip):

LH1399 / 14-02-2011 from PRG/ to FRA

STD: 18:20+0 / STA: 19:35+0

LH422 / 15-02-2011 from FRA/ to BOS

STD: 11:55+0 / STA: 14:15+0

The Jet-a-Pet Transport Service provided (a) European agent who went to the town of Nedakonice, in the Czech Republic to pick Una up and drive her the 300 km ( 186.4 miles) to the International Airport in Prague. The photo at the top (of this Hub) shows a soon-to-be-world-traveling chodsky pes saying goodbye to her family. Reports from Jana (the human person we acquired Una from) indicate that Una took the departure with good humour. The drive to Prague took about 4 hours, from there the first leg of the flight entailed a layover in Frankfort, Germany. Una spent the night in Frankfort, then (the first thing next morning it was back on the plane to continue on to Logan International Airport in Boston Ma. The Jet-a-Pet people arranged for a person to wait at the airport to meet Una and walk her through Customs. Once on the ground, the process took at least a couple of hours (after all Una was emigrating from a former Soviet bloc country!) then into the SUV for the drive to her new home in Hope Valley RI.

The time difference between the Czech Republic and Rhode Island (US) is 6 hours, so jet lag was an issue. It seemed to take Una about 6 days to get over the effects of her flight. During this time she stayed close to us, not inclined to explore with the company of one of us. After this period of eat, nap, play and nap some more, Una;s energy levels could be seen to increase markedly, especially in the last three days of the 'catching up on the time zones'. It was at this point we decided that a trip to the beach was in order.

It has (now) been nearly a month since Una arrived at her new home. She is proving to be a very, very intelligent dog and a very social one. I mention this because our first German Shepherd, Ola, was also very intelligent. She was not, however, particularly friendly to strangers. This is not to say that Ola was un-friendly! It was just that she had her 'pack of three' and while there was a world of people and animals outside our yard, Ola was interested only in her family. She would be polite in a way that appeared friendly, but was never what one would call 'goofy-friendly'. Ola had an air of dignity and self-possession that was quite impressive.

Una, on the other hand, clearly enjoys meeting both people and other dogs. She has a playfulness about her that seems to go deeper than the puppy-ish outgoing personality that almost all dogs have at this age. This is good, as Phyllis enjoys walking around the neighborhood in the mornings and by all preliminary indications, Una is already taking to this daily routine with much enthusiasm. So the 'settling in' process has begun...

Hub Preview: Una has been enrolled in a once-a-week Obedience/Puppy Play group however the person running the Class appears to be a strict Skinnerian. ( "..is it dinnertime already? I'm sorry, I must not have heard the click"). While we do not subscribe to the choke chain, bad-dog school of training, the view of a dog as simply a set of behaviors to be positively reinforced is not given enough credit to the subjective life of a dog. Our belief is that dogs do have a measure of self-awareness, perhaps even a consciousness. To illustrate a quick 'Ola Story'; when she was a puppy Ola hated to see us leave the house in the morning. One particular Monday morning as I prepared to leave, Ola was nowhere to be found, (It is necessary to say that during the preceding weekend, we tried to give Ola her first bath indoors. She endured it but hated every minute of the process), I looked everywhere...except the bathroom. There was Ola, sitting in the bath tub, with a look on her face that said, "Look if you stay home today, I'll let you give me another bath".
Who can doubt that dogs have some form of conscious self-awareness?

Una: the Puppy Diaries...

(to be continued...)