CLEO EARNS HER CROSS-COUNTRY WINGS! – 12.06.2011

Today was a very long and emotionally stressful day for me.  Cleo was finally making the move from Fruita, Colorado to Orlando, Florida!  Coordinating today was a challenge because it involved the cooperation of Delta Airlines, Mother Nature, several different people & of course, Cleo.  There were a lot of moving parts to this project and plans started early last week.  Thankfully, all went great and Cleo arrived safely in Orlando as planned!

The day started when Kathi Wisdom, who whelped, raised, trained, showed and has loved Cleo since the day she was born, left her house at 3am to drive Cleo to Delta Airlines in Denver, Colorado from her home in Fruita, Colorado.  I coordinated my wake up time with Kathi’s departure time to make sure that I was accessible at all times.  Kathi & Cleo arrived at the Delta Pet First offices in Denver at 8:35am, after a five and a half hour drive in freezing temperatures.  She settled nicely into her giant crate at the airport and waited patiently for her turn to board the plane, see below.

Cleo’s flight took off at 10:35am and had to connect in Atlanta.  Her flight wasn’t due to land in Atlanta until 3:30pm, leaving me with a lot of free time to worry.  What to do when you are stressed?  Go buy dog food, lots of it, 9 bags of Orijen Adult at 30 pounds each, see below!

Cleo landed safely in Atlanta and had a two and a half hour layover.  She finally left Atlanta at around 6:15pm and landed in Orlando at almost 8:00pm, where Daniel Sanchez, her show handler, was eagerly awaiting her arrival.  Cleo will be living with Danny & Vanessa (& Karma) while she is finishing her show career.  What a relief when I finally saw online that she had been “scanned” at arrival in Orlando.  Delta Pet First has a pretty cool system where Cleo was assigned a barcode – almost like a UP package, LOL – and was scanned at departure and arrival in each city.  This would then show up immediately online for tracking purposes, see below.

Danny immediately took Cleo to her new home with them and, with Vanessa’s help, got her settled in, see below!  We will be meeting her this weekend when she comes to Miami for this weekend’s dog shows!  I am so excited!  A million wholehearted thanks go to Kathi Wisdom, Daniel Sanchez, Vanessa Lanz-Sanchez, Mother Nature and Delta Pet First!