The Return Flight

[ a photo of Bingo admiring Cheryl,
with his head on her knee ]

By Fred
Our return flight with Bingo went pretty well. This time I went through security with him. I removed his training collar first, holding him by his regular collar as we walked through the machine together, which set off the beep, beep, beep. So we both went back to try again, and this time the agent suggested that Bingo should go through by himself and without his regular collar, giving the agent an excuse to catch Bingo on the other side and pet him (which is, of course, what everyone wants to do). Bingo went through and then I went through, stupidly holding the collar in my hand as if a dog were still attached to it, but no alarms this time, and everyone seemed satisfied except the security supervisor (clearly jealous that the first agent got to pet Bingo and she did not) who rushed over and suggested that Bingo should be searched and that she should do it and who took the opportunity to rub him all over and then whisper to me he's a real knockout, isn't he.

But the Phoenix airport, unlike the Tampa airport, would not let Bingo out to the secure area before the flight. Instead, they have a dog park that is on the other side of security and still a long walk from there, with long lines of holiday travelers, so he did not get a bathroom break before the flight--and, luckily, he did fine.

We sat in the bulkhead this time and across the aisle was another service dog, a very well-behaved golden retriever who curled up in a tight ball for the trip. We see now why SEGD recommends using a regular seat for training--the puppy needs to learn to fit into a single space, just as they fit into the small floorboard off a car's passenger seat, something that Bingo does very well. But, as usual, given an inch, Bingo sees a mile, and we allowed him to stretch out a bit. Oh, well, sometimes you need a little vacation.