isolated from the other dogs for five months, to avoid infecting them. Once released from quarantine, she showed signs of aggression, and we didn’t want a repeat of the Sophie episode. Our vet adopted the French bulldog. And although many people love them, after those two experiences, I wouldn’t get a French bulldog again, but that’s just me. Others seem to do well with them.
We’ve adopted dogs successfully too, not just placed them with others. When Greta’s breeder called to tell me that herlittermate was being given up by her owner, because she (the owner) was ill and could no longer care for her, we took her immediately. Cookie spent ten happy years with us until she died at thirteen.
It’s not always easy to make the right match when you buy a puppy, or guess who they will turn out to be once they’re grown. It’s a crapshoot, like anything else in life. You do your best to make it work, but if you can’t, sometimes it’s fairer to the dog, and everyone involved, to find a home and an owner who suits them better. Not all matches are made in heaven, and sometimes it works out right the second time around. And if you are going to place a dog in another home, it’s best to be honest about what’s not working well for you. It may even be your personality, not the dog’s. Or just not the right fit. But hiding their problem traits, if they have any, will only create another mismatch. Even when we gave away Sophie and Tommy, we made full disclosure of what they’d done to my son’s dog. Both went to homes where there were no other dogs, and they never had a problem, but their new owners knew what they were getting, and why they had been wrong for us. It’s like in any relationship—being honest is essential.
In any case, if you seriously believe you have a mismatch on your hands, more than likely there is a person ora family out there who would be thrilled to have that dog, and where even the dog would be much happier than he or she is now. Sometimes “irreconcilable differences” happen in life, even with dogs. Don’t beat yourself up over it, just try to find a solution that will work for all concerned.
Minnie in her hotel room in New York, en route from Paris to San Francisco
Victoria Traina
TEN
Minnie’s Return from Paris or Long Trips
Personally, I don’t like long, long plane trips. I’m not a fan of flying for twelve hours or longer, or facing huge time differences when I arrive. I’m lucky that I don’t suffer from jet lag, and I’ve discovered that the secret to that, for me, is to break up long trips. So I don’t fly over the Pole when traveling from San Francisco to Paris (which takes about twelve hours). I stop in New York for a night or two, which turns it into a five-hour trip and a six-hour one and gives me the added bonus of visiting with two of my daughters, who live in New York. Breaking the trip up that way is a total win-win for me and seems to avoid jet lag completely. It’s a perfect solution, and as I prefer night flights, I sleep on both flights(San Francisco to New York, and New York to Paris) and arrive fresh as a daisy. And those two short flights are easy for Minnie too. She wears herself out all day, has all her normal meals, and by the time we board a red-eye flight at ten or eleven p.m. or later, she just curls up in her bag and goes to sleep. And both the winds and time difference are in our favor.
But it’s the return trip from Paris to New York that is a tough one. The flight is long, and nothing is in our favor, except the movies and a decent French meal, neither of which Minnie can enjoy. The winds are against you going west (from New York to California also, but that flight is shorter than the Paris–New York flight), and with rare exceptions, instead of six hours flying to Paris, it’s about an eight-hour flight from Paris to New York, sometimes longer. Add to that two hours in security before the flight, and an hour waiting for bags and going
We’ve adopted dogs successfully too, not just placed them with others. When Greta’s breeder called to tell me that herlittermate was being given up by her owner, because she (the owner) was ill and could no longer care for her, we took her immediately. Cookie spent ten happy years with us until she died at thirteen.
It’s not always easy to make the right match when you buy a puppy, or guess who they will turn out to be once they’re grown. It’s a crapshoot, like anything else in life. You do your best to make it work, but if you can’t, sometimes it’s fairer to the dog, and everyone involved, to find a home and an owner who suits them better. Not all matches are made in heaven, and sometimes it works out right the second time around. And if you are going to place a dog in another home, it’s best to be honest about what’s not working well for you. It may even be your personality, not the dog’s. Or just not the right fit. But hiding their problem traits, if they have any, will only create another mismatch. Even when we gave away Sophie and Tommy, we made full disclosure of what they’d done to my son’s dog. Both went to homes where there were no other dogs, and they never had a problem, but their new owners knew what they were getting, and why they had been wrong for us. It’s like in any relationship—being honest is essential.
In any case, if you seriously believe you have a mismatch on your hands, more than likely there is a person ora family out there who would be thrilled to have that dog, and where even the dog would be much happier than he or she is now. Sometimes “irreconcilable differences” happen in life, even with dogs. Don’t beat yourself up over it, just try to find a solution that will work for all concerned.
Minnie in her hotel room in New York, en route from Paris to San Francisco
Victoria Traina
TEN
Minnie’s Return from Paris or Long Trips
Personally, I don’t like long, long plane trips. I’m not a fan of flying for twelve hours or longer, or facing huge time differences when I arrive. I’m lucky that I don’t suffer from jet lag, and I’ve discovered that the secret to that, for me, is to break up long trips. So I don’t fly over the Pole when traveling from San Francisco to Paris (which takes about twelve hours). I stop in New York for a night or two, which turns it into a five-hour trip and a six-hour one and gives me the added bonus of visiting with two of my daughters, who live in New York. Breaking the trip up that way is a total win-win for me and seems to avoid jet lag completely. It’s a perfect solution, and as I prefer night flights, I sleep on both flights(San Francisco to New York, and New York to Paris) and arrive fresh as a daisy. And those two short flights are easy for Minnie too. She wears herself out all day, has all her normal meals, and by the time we board a red-eye flight at ten or eleven p.m. or later, she just curls up in her bag and goes to sleep. And both the winds and time difference are in our favor.
But it’s the return trip from Paris to New York that is a tough one. The flight is long, and nothing is in our favor, except the movies and a decent French meal, neither of which Minnie can enjoy. The winds are against you going west (from New York to California also, but that flight is shorter than the Paris–New York flight), and with rare exceptions, instead of six hours flying to Paris, it’s about an eight-hour flight from Paris to New York, sometimes longer. Add to that two hours in security before the flight, and an hour waiting for bags and going
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