Sunday, February 19, 2012

Bringing Sam to California

My husband Carlos and I have a dog named Sam and we recently moved to California so we brought him with us, of course, how could we leave him if he is family.

When we decided to come to California we were super worried about him, because he would have to be transported in a plane and since he is a big dog he doesn't travel in the cabin, at the end we decided to flight with Continental and use their PetSafe service, he flew in the cargo but in a temperature controlled area specially for him. He arrived in SFO safe, super tired and thirsty and of course scared but fine, we were so happy to see him when he arrived (we arrived earlier than him) and to see that he was OK. He arrived fine but we are going to try not to make him go through something like this again since it was a very stressful situation for all of us. It was nice that there were a lot of people giving us their support that day through his Facebook page, all of his fans were waiting for him to arrive, to know he was safe and healthy before going to bed, it was nice to know that all those friends were sending us their good wishes and best thoughts hoping that everything went fine with his trip. Thanks all for that!!

We are happy and thankful for being able to have him here with us, we are excited because compared with Costa Rica, California is a very dog-friendly place, not that Costa Rica isn't but here you have dog parks, big sidewalks and parks where you can walk with your dog with no problem.

Sam

We were super excited the first time we took him to a dog park, we weren't sure how he was going to behave being around so many dogs but he was great, he had such a wonderful time he and we couldn't believe it.

Point Isabel Dog Park

Later we had the opportunity to go to Point Isabel, when we arrived there we weren't sure to let him go off-leash because this park is open and we were afraid he would run and that we would lose him, but we decided to give it a try and he was fantastic, he was always close to us, always looking back making sure we were there and he would come back when we called him, it was amazing like if he was trained all of his life.

Sam at Point Isabel Dog Park

We went to Point Isabel to meet our friends Doug and Megan and his two samoyeds Jamie and Alice.

Alice, Jamie and Sam

Silhouettes

Even though we lived in Costa Rica, a country that is surrounded by the ocean in both sides, we were never able to take Sam to the beach because it was too hot for him, so we were also excited of being able to take him to the beach here and see what his reaction was. We first took him to Fort Funston, he was first afraid of the waves, he wasn't really sure what to do.

Fort Funston

But later he found a friend who run into the water so he saw it was safe and followed him, it was super fun to see him run on the water.

Fort Funston

Then he didn't want to get out!

Fort Funston

Fort Funston

We took him to Santa Cruz too, he had a blast that day, since now he knows that all that water is safe to play in he had a great time, he found a few friends to run and play with and for us it is always so fulfilling to see him so happy, running freely and having the best time of his life.

Sam

Sam

Sam

We certainly hope to keep having awesome days full of fun with our dog Sam. Next thing in our to-do list is to take him to play in the snow :-)