Ruyman and I are totally devoted to our dog. She’s smart, loyal, gentle, and amazingly cute in a slightly cross-eyed way. When we decided to move across the pond, we knew it was going to be hard to bring her with us and even harder to part with her. Since we don’t know how long we’ll be in Spain, we didn’t want to give her away, but to loan her out to someone who would care for her while we were gone. We asked several people, but nobody could take her for the time needed. The only options left were to give her away or bring her with us.
International travel is hard enough if you’re a human in the cabin. It’s devastating to a pet in the cargo. If she’d been a lap dog, the solution would have been simple enough. As a 56-pound puppy, our options were more limited. The only way to get her in the cabin with us was as a service dog. Even though we’d started training her as a diabetes service dog, we hadn’t certified her yet. So close, yet not close enough.
As it turns out, the US has a broad definition for service animals, including emotional support dogs. Emotional support dogs are animals that help their owners cope with conditions like depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. One of the reasons we’d bought Laila was to help me manage the depression I’d been diagnosed with a few years prior. I spoke to my psychiatrist and, thanks to an official letter, Laila was dubbed an emotional support dog, free to ride with us in the cabin anywhere in the US.
Europe, on the other hand, limits service dogs to the blind only. We’d been prepared to ship Laila via cargo from New York to Tenerife, but thanks to the intervention of an Air Europa employee at JFK, our dog rode the whole way at our feet. Her behavior was irreproachable and she only became anxious during landings.
While I’m grateful we had our dog with us during the flights, I felt like I was traveling with a scarlet letter - a big red H for handicapped. People were particularly curious because there was nothing exteriorly wrong with me. I tried to get creative when answering the impertinent questions put to me. “What kind of service dog is she?” was countered with “a Labrador retriever.” To the query “What is she a service dog for?” I answered “to help me.” About 20 hours into our travels, I stopped being so polite and asked people if I got to ask them inappropriate questions about their medical histories, too. At the 30 hour mark, I was so delusionally tired I couldn’t be sure if they’d really asked me anything.
I guess the important thing is that we all got there safe and sound. My only question now is what to do with a jet-lagged puppy.
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