Zinfandel Flies From MN to CO

Zinfandel had her first, taxi, TSA, electric hand dryer, plane, hurry up in an airport approved lot, etc. experience, on Monday. She did well and it appears it was harder for the PRs than for the pup! Good girl, Zinfandel. TSA was the worst of it. Kristi asked the man how he wanted to proceed, he asked that Zinfandel's leash be removed, but her collar and GL to stay on. Kristi put Zinfandel in a sit-stay and proceeded through the metal detector, without Zinfandel. She turned around and called Zinfandel through. Zinfandel did great, but of course the detector went off since both her collar and GL have metal rings. We went back through, removed those, returned to a sit-stay. Kristi went through again and then called Zinfandel through. This time no alarm, so Kristi thinks, whew got through that, off to the plane now. But as she reached for the collar and GL from the TSA agent, another agent came over and said Kristi had been randomly selected and needed to follow him, without getting the leash out of the bin. Oh boy!

Off we went, no collar, no GL and no leash. Thank goodness for the cape! Zinfandel did as well as can be expected in the circumstances, although there was definitely not a heel! Once Kristi's hands were tested she grabbed the collar and GL and got them on Zinfandel. Since we had to cross two lanes of passengers, bags, kids, strollers, TSA agents and who knows what else. Kristi grabbed Zinfandel's collar to walk to our far, far away end. Not an ideal situation at all, but what's one to do? Upon getting to Kristi's bin, she grabbed the leash and snapped in on Zinfandel, WHEW!!!! But wait, now another TSA agent wants to test Kristi's shoes. REALLY!!!!??????!!!! Ok, fine, Kristi will get her stuff back in her purse while you do that. Thankfully, Lee was traveling with us, (this is not normal), he grabbed his bag and laptop bag and was going to grab Kristi's, but couldn't find it. YET ANOTHER TSA agent had grabbed it and was going through it. It mostly had Zinfandel's stuff in it, and it was amusing to the lady behind us. She asked, "Is the pink bra one of her squeaky toys too?" After 15 minutes, they determined it was the Coleman bag tag on the front pocket. (I could not make this stuff up!) At this point they have no idea of how to repack Zinfandel's suitcase that is inside Kristi's and make Kristi's stuff fit in around it. We were taken to another area where Kristi repacked. And you thought this was going to be about an airplane ride. HA! We just hope that no disabled person would ever have to go through this situation!

Once in the boarding area, we got seats together and went to the restroom. There Zinfandel encountered her first Dyson high-speed hand dryer. She wasn't to sure about it, but by the time we used our third one, in Denver she was completely oblivious to them.

Zinfandel slept most of the flight, except when the flight attendants would come to say hi to her and give kisses.

Once in Denver we needed to use the escalators to get down to the train to go to the main terminal. She wasn't so sure about them but went with it pretty well and did even better on the way up after the train ride, which also went ok. She did break her sit-stay when the train lurched.

By the time we got to the passenger pick-up to wait for Aunt Ally, Zinfandel was done with this training moment! She would not hold a sit or down-stay for very long. Apparently 5 hours is enough for a 5 month old puppy!

Waiting as TSA unpacks every item!

Waiting in the boarding area.

Is it time to get on the plane yet?

Colorado bound.