Duke's a Canadian

He made it. You may not know that Duke is half Canadian. His father was a Canadian field champion here -- making him technically more entitled to live in Canada -- unless you ask Paul. Getting him here was a story with the makings of a reality show. But first, does this look like the face of trouble? Fortunately, he did not make the evening news.

In a nutshell...we made reservations to fly here for the move on Sunday 10/5 and were told we only needed the dimensions of the crate. A few days later we were told he was too big -- unless he could lose 15 pounds in a week -- and would go Air Canada cargo and we need to call the day before to make the final arrangements and make sure he was on our flight. Paul calls and then is told he won't be on our flight because Air Canada cargo is closed on the weekend (all along they knew our flight was Sunday)  so Duke would fly out on Monday. Paul decides to stay until Monday and the kids and Kish fly out on Sunday. Paul gets to the airport with our friend Cheryl Bray Monday morning and they say Duke's crate is too big to fit on the plane. So Cheryl takes him home for the next week to join her three large dogs until we can figure it out. We finally find a Northwest flight - through Detroit --  to take him. But it can't be on the weekends because cargo is closed in Canada and of course Monday the 13th is Thanksgiving...and they are closed. So Tuesday Cheryl takes him at 6 am to NW cargo in Chicago and our vet didn't give her the right papers (Cheryl had to take him to the vet again on Monday because his health certificate is only valid for 72 hours). Duke goes back to the Bray house for another night. Today, Cheryl delivers him and they ask about the water dishes that attach to the crate, which Cheryl doesn't have. Fearing that Cheryl might go postal (actually, NW was very accommodating), they find some dog dishes fit for a shitzu and attach them -- FAA regulations you know -- they have to have the dishes even though they can't have food in the crate.  So Duke gets on the plane at O'Hare, has a two hour layover in Detroit and arrives in Montreal.  Kish and Louis go to pick him up at cargo and then are sent on a wild goose chase to go to customs just to get a paper stamped and run back to pick him up by 5:30 pm -- because -- you guessed it -- that's when they close. It felt like an episode of The Amazing Race. We're glad to have Duke Urlacher Gretsky Pisani with us -- Paul might think differently.