Just a Little Extra Money

We're finding out (as if we didn't already know) that in China, money will get you everywhere.

Last Thursday, it got Erik a fast pass through the exit health exam for Scout. For the base fee, he would have had to go back two more times and do all the paperwork himself. For 100Y extra, he only had to go back once and do the paperwork. For 250Y, he only had to go once, they did the paperwork, he got a guide to take him to all the checkpoints (including that cotton pickin' microchip) and they sent the results to us by messenger the next day. Yes, I'll take option 3 for 250Y please Alex. Best 250Y we've ever spent! So that was an unexpectedly easy moment.

This morning, I received the invoice from the cargo company that is handling Scout's excessively early (7:30 am for a 4:25 pm flight??) departure from China. In the place of "airline fee" I saw the number 11,521Y, putting our grand total over 15,000Y once he threw in his cargo processing fee. $2,000+ to ship our dog back to the States? Dude, she's not made of gold!

I've held up pretty well through all of this transition, but this pushed me over the edge because I was sure that all manner of reasoning would not get that fee back down to what it should be. Basically, they were calculating her weight based on the size of the enormous crate we had to buy for her according to airline regulations and decided together they would weigh 101 pounds. Yeah, they weigh 30 pounds. I was prepared for a fight, but when I contested the fee, I got a prompt email that said, "Ok, you can pay 4,937Y."

I'm sorry, where am I again? Is this China? This never happens! Oh wait, it is China because then we saw he added 1,000Y onto HIS fee because he had to, and we quote, "have a profit." Friends, I believe what we have here is a case of someone thinking the "rich" foreigners will never look at the invoice, so why not ask a little extra? But when it turns out that said foreigner who calls (Erik, not me - I hate phone calls) has stellar Chinese and has to pay this fee himself (instead of his company paying), he finds another way to make a little money.

So either we offer it up front or they take it from us. Either way, money moves the world around here.

What It Takes

If I had known what it would take to get a dog back to the States a year ago, we would have told the kids, "We're waiting till the U.S. to get a dog."

But here we are with a dog we don't want to leave behind because really, could you resist this kind of cuteness?

No, no one could unless they were blind, or heartless, or a robot. So we press on. When all is said and done, this is what we know (at this point, but I am fully prepared for there to be more rigamarole, or at least more money) will have to happen to get her there:

1. My friend Laura takes a collection of Scout's things (bed, food, toys, treats) back to the U.S. with her in early August to give to my parents

2. A health check at one particular clinic in town within 7 days prior to departure where they will unnecessarily microchip our dog (see previous blog post).

3. We take the results of the health check to another clinic in town where they give us some official certificate that proves our dog is healthy. And microchipped. There is a 100% likelihood that this will involve a red stamp of some kind because that's how China rolls.

4. August 30th, 3 days before our departure, we take Scout to the airport nine hours before her 4:10 pm flight so that she can go through customs. It's unclear why it takes this long. Honestly, I'm not at all sure it isn't a scam to grab a few more of our hard earned kuai before we leave. United in the U.S. was completely unaware that this is required on this end. They are also unaware that this process cannot happen on a Sunday, which is why she's flying earlier than us. This would have been SUPER helpful information when we bought our tickets for a Sunday flight.

5. 4:25 pm she lands in Chicago, where my FABULOUS brother and sister-in-law have graciously agreed to come from Milwaukee meet her. The other option was to have her fly all the way to Minneapolis, which would have required a 6 hour layover in Chicago and then a midnight landing. Then my poor parents would have had to pick her up and drive her home. 

6. Scout tries to get over her traumatic experience with the help of said items from #1, adjust to a 13 hour time change, learn what life is like on the 1st floor where, "outside" is just on the other side of a door and not 12 floors down, and wonder where her people are for 3 days.

7. The next day my brother drives Scout halfway to Rochester while my parents bring his dog whom he left with them two days before (because we all thought it might be a bit much for my brother and his wife to have both dogs, especially since their dog would probably freak our dog out or our dog will be doing enough freaking out as it is) and they do a dog swap in the Dells. Scout continues to wonder who these kind people are, and where are HER people?!?  

8. Oh and did I mention at this point this will run is about $1,300 USD? Thank God she only cost $9 in the first place.

Resistance is futile

One of my greatest cultural frustrations in Asia is my American need to know the whys behind a rule. Really, I'm a rule follower, but I'd really like to know the reasons behind the rule. If I know them, I'll (generally) follow.

But Asia does not expect to be questioned, and therefore the question "Why?" is rarely answered with satisfaction. Whenever I come up against seemingly illogical requirements, I feel like the people must feel in Star Trek who are approached by the Borg, "We are Borg Asia. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile." Do not question. Just obey. Regardless of the ridiculousness of the rule.

Yet, futile though it is, I cannot help but still ask, "Why?" And Asia answers, "It's the rule." But I still ask. Sigh.

So when I was told that our dog must be microchipped days before leaving China, even though the U.S. does not require microchipping, I couldn't resist asking the cargo people, "Why?"

I had a vain hope that, because Jade from Panda cargo has been exceedingly responsive and helpful (unlike Grace from United who sounds less and less happy each time I call, and I really don't blame her), I thought she might give me a reason. Or better yet, say, "You're right. That's silly. You don't have to do it."

But no. She told me, "China requires it." But why, Jade, WHY? Do you understand what I mean when I ask why? Tell me the method behind your madness.

Oh Gina. Resistance is futile.

How Much Is That Doggie on the Airplane?

From the second we said we were leaving, we had offers from people who wanted to take Scout off our hands. Aside from the fact that it would devastate our kids to leave her behind, I'm not about to go through all the work of a puppy and then hand her over to someone else to enjoy her for the rest of her life. No way - we've earned this dog.

Thankfully, it's a fairly simple procedure to take her back to the States - get a health check and certificate here in China, put her on the plane in an approved crate, then pick her up on the other hand and take her home scott free (albeit it severely traumatized from 16 hours stuck in a box without food or people).

But while it is simple, it is expensive. I just got off the phone with a woman at United who didn't seem too enthusiastic about helping me. Maybe because it was midnight for her. Let's give her credit for that. That might have also contributed to the fact that initially she tried to tell me the fee for shipping Scout in yen. (it's 24,000 in case you're interested). I guess Beijing is now in Japan.

After that confusion, I was informed that she will cost $783 to ship. In addition to that, we need to buy a regulation crate which has to be a size bigger than normal. Since she's a long dog, we have to get the 32" crate. In the States this would probably cost about $80, but we have to buy it here, where it is $120 on Tao Bao. And then there are some incidentals - $10 for a metal water bowl that attaches to the inside of the crate, and I suspect some fee for the health check and certificate.

It's a good thing she only cost $9 in the first place.

Have a Little Faith

For the last week, Scout has been wearing the Dishtowel of Shame. She's had to wear it to protect the wound from her surgery last Sunday - we got her fixed (as Megan says, "Because she was broken.") It wore her out - in this picture she was literally falling asleep standing up.

But once she emerged from her anesthesia induced fog, we were told we could go about normal business with her. The vet should have told the general public this information, because we have had no shortage of dirty looks and criticism. Some people look at us like we are cruel animal owners to drag her outside in this condition. Others laugh and comment about her funny clothes, as though we chose this outfit for her.

The most surprising though is the number of people who feel they must comment on the surgery itself. When we tell them why she is wearing a dishrag, they inevitably say, "Oh, she's too young to have that done. You should wait until she's grown." When we tell them that she IS full grown, they respond by insisting that she is a Labrador or a Golden Retriever. If we inform them that she is neither and that she is 7 months old, they tell us we should have waited till she is nine months.

What baffles me in these conversations (you may have noticed I am often baffled in this country), is that they seem to have little faith in the veterinarians who performed this surgery. Do they think that the doctors would not have confirmed her age? Or that they are back alley vets just looking to make a buck off of ignorant foreigners? I'm sorely tempted to tell them that we did it ourselves and we just didn't know. Mostly I just wish they would have a little faith in us and our doctors and our collective intelligence regarding the age, breed, and treatment of Scout.

I'm really looking forward to getting the dishtowel off so we can go back to being a little bit less conspicuous.

Mysteries

The cauliflower left over in the bowl on the table was mysteriously gone. Did one of the kids put it away?

Scout barked her "scary intruders!" bark aimed at my bedroom door at 9:30 pm. I opened it to see one of her toys rolling to a stop right outside. Seemingly on its own. (anyone have weird poltergeist music? Cue now). How did that happen?

5 minutes later, she did the scary bark again. I heard "mommy!" When I stepped out of my bedroom door to see what Megan needed, I realized my foot was wet. What?

The next morning, I found that the wetness corresponded to a large puddle Scout left just inside my bedroom door. Why would she do that at night? And when did she do it?

Apparently before Megan cried out for me in her sleep, causing the dog to bark. Possibly also before the first time Megan make her bark by running down to my room and back up, and in the process kicking one of Scout's toys toward my door (I told you there was no such thing as ghosts, silly).

But did she do it before or after she left the other large puddle by the office door? And why did she pee twice in the middle of the night? And then at 5 am? And then at 7 am even though she hadn't had anything to drink in between? And then again immediately outside?

Probably it had something to do with her consuming all that leftover cauliflower. Note to dog: if you going to try to surreptitiously eat someone's leftover cauliflower, clean your little paws before you climb on the table or they will know it was you (in the morning, when the lights are on).

So cauliflower makes dogs pee copious amounts, and little girls running amok in the night makes them go on high alert. Mysteries solved.

Someone Loves Her Daddy

Whenever Erik leaves on a trip, we're bound to have tears from one of us, but I was quite surprised to see that the member of our house most distraught by Erik's departure this morning was Scout.

I took her with me when I accompanied Erik to find a taxi. He was walking on the street with his suitcase to avoid the clacking of the brick sidewalks. I noticed she kept trying to join him, so we finally did. When we started to walk home and leave him to wait for his taxi on the corner, she didn't want to go. As you can see in the video, first she started by just looking back at him. Then she resorted to planting herself in one spot. You can't hear it well, but she's whining too. I finally had to pick her up and carry her most of the way home, then almost pull her into the building. Now she's laying dejected on the floor. Sorry puppy - you're going to have to wait 5 days for for him to walk back through that door!

Our English Speaking Dog

Woman in elevator: So you speak to your dog in English?

Me: Yes

Woman in elevator: And it understands you?

Me: Yes

Woman in elevator: If you speak Chinese, does it understand?

Me: No

Woman in elevator as she's exiting: It understands English, but not Chinese . . . (sounding baffled)

This conversation is second only to the "is she a golden retriever?" one when it comes to strangers and Scout. People seem either amazed and/or jealous that our dog understands English, because they often say, "Ha! Your dog can understand English and I can't!"

Sometimes I feel like part of my purpose here is simply to astound the locals.

What Kind of Dog is She?

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me if Scout is a Golden Retriever, I could BUY a Golden Retriever. It's true, she has transformed into quite the shaggy, golden puppy. But when I tell them that she is almost 6 months old, they immediately say, "Oh no, she's almost full grown - she can't be." I tell them she is a "tu gou" - literally a dirt dog, or country mutt. Then they tell me she's a good looking dirt dog. We agree.

If there's one thing that makes us confident that she is NOT a retriever, it's not her size. It's her completely inability to fetch anything. Not a lot of of things make me feel more foolish in life than throwing a toy for a dog only to have her just stare at it, then back at me like, "Well what did you do that for, you idiot? Now it's way over there."

So maybe part Golden Retriever, part something that really hates fetching.

The Training Continues

Our puppy training continues . . . (that's a disclaimer for those who don't want to keep reading about our dog)

The transition to "bathroom is now outside" hasn't been the smoothest. Mostly it consists of us hoping to nab Scout whenever she makes a dash for the porch where we previously had been taking her outside. Sometimes we don't notice, and we find that she just left something on the stairs for us (like, "Well, people, you weren't paying attention and I figured this was close enough!). Or, like yesterday, when we were too occupied with guests, she just goes somewhere in the house.

So it's a little like starting over. Thankfully she's past the initial, "I'll just hold it till we get back inside" thing she did initially when we went out for walks.

But there IS something that we seem to have trained her well in. We learned that whoever enters a space first a dog will perceive as the "master" so we make Scout let us go first when we go out the door or in the elevator. We've also been training her to sit while waiting for or in the elevator (because otherwise she roots around and finds weird stuff to eat).

She's done really well with this. She will sit outside our door after we've gone in and wait until we give her the OK to come in. This is a great thing, except when you get out of the elevator and forget to say "OK" to your puppy. I was unlocking the front door and the elevator door was closing before I realized that she was still sitting in there, waiting for me. Yay! Not yay that my dog almost took a solo elevator ride, but yay that she has something down.

Now for that bathroom thing.

Scout's friend

Scout has a friend. Her name is Sunshine. She's owned by our friends, the Olivers, who got her from a woman who found her on the street about a year ago. We took care of Sunshine over the weekend which was thrilling for Scout - playtime ALL the time! They did settle down a little after their initial time together. Here they are:

And this picture is just to say, "I thought we bought a brown dog . . . ?"

The Great Wide World

We've finally received the ok from our vet to take our dog outside. So far her view of "outside" has been limited to what she can see on our approximately 12 square meter porch on the 13th floor, or being held in our arms as we walk around the block.

So it was no surprise that on our first adventure out the door, she planted her little bottom and shook. I had brought a few meat sticks with me to entice her. After some persuasion, she would walk about 5 or 10 feet then sit again and shake. Altogether we might have been outside 10 minutes.

We tried again later in the day, and her times between stopping began to lengthen. We managed to walk about a half hour, and she seemed to enjoy it.

Since then we've had a few more successful walks and she is learning that outside is fun! People leave a lot of interesting things on the ground that she likes to try to eat. It's also a place where the big people seem to go wild with excitement when she goes potty, so that's a bonus.

This is all good because it prepared us for what happened this morning. We want her to learn to go potty outside now rather than on the porch, so I thought it would be good to run her down right away. She's pretty anxious to get outside first thing, so I was all dressed with her leash in hand when I took her out of the pen. I held her in the elevator so she didn't get any ideas to go until we got outside, but as we were going down I realized, "I forgot my keys."

This might not be such a bad thing if Erik weren't traveling and it weren't 5:20 a.m., but both those things were true. I tried to buzz back in after about 20 minutes, but of course the kids didn't hear it. We walked another 20 and tried again. Still no luck. Again at 6:30 I tried because I knew Ethan's alarm would go off then. He almost let the doorbell go, thinking I would get it, but then had the wisdom to think, "But maybe it's mom!"

So we had a nice long walk in the great wide world this morning and now she's all tuckered out. I think she's gonna like it.

Why did we get a dog again?

Ok, so having a dog has had its moments. It's fun to see how excited she gets when we come in the door. She's a snuggler. Seeing her curled up in the sun is just plain relaxing. But here's when she isn't fun . . .

At 4:30 in the morning when she decides to start barking
Or at 1:30 a.m. That's not fun either.

When she eats half a bag of dog treats and then needs to drink a gallon of water the rest of the day, so much so that it basically leaks out of her all over the house

When she starts vomiting LIVE worms at 8:15 p.m. Thank God the vet is open late.

As I'm sitting down after a long, single parenting day with a cranberry Barcardi Breezer, a bowl of popcorn and an episode of Psych, and in the second it takes me to turn off the light she has her face in my popcorn and is INHALING it.

When we're still finding poop on the stairs, even after taking her outside 15 minutes. Seriously? It was so urgent that you couldn't tell one of us you had to go, even though 15 minutes ago you had a perfect opportunity to do that in an appropriate place?

When she has learned from the dog we're sitting to bark at us AFTER we walk in the door. We're here. You know us. Why are you barking?

When she knocks over a glass of cranberry Crystal Light onto our white carpet.

I know, right now you might be thinking, "Aww, but she's just a puppy!" Yes, but if we don't do some serious training, I fear this is the kind of adult dog we will most likely have as well. Just like with kids, they don't just "grow out" of everything. Lately the responsibility of having a dog has been weighing on me, and I'm struggling to remember why this was a good idea. Anyone care to remind me?

We Gave Her an Inch . . .

We don't yet trust Scout to be out on her own and today she proved why.

I had to take Megan to soccer which meant we'd be gone for over 2 1/2 hours. That's tough for someone only 3 months old. Normally we put her in her crate, but today I thought I'd give her a little more freedom by leaving her crate open inside a large dog pen. We have friends whose dog happily stays in this kind of situation even when they are present in the house (we have co-op classes there).

For extra insurance, I put it all the "man cave" (our inside, tiled, not particularly warm patio) and shut the door - thank God. I threw in a few of her toys and a pee pad and thought she'd be ok.

On the way home, I stopped to get some noodles and Megan continued home to let Scout out. She found her not only outside of her pen (along with a couple of her toys) but with a noticeably larger belly. I guess I forgot about the bag of dog treats on a high shelf. They were gone, save 2.

This means that she not only managed to get out of the pen (under? over?) but she also climbed up a chair and onto the shelf where the treats were. How she got her toys out, I do not know.

I guess the only question now is - when will we see these treats again, and from which end of our dog?