Category Archives: dogs

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A Haitian Tale of Veterinary Angst


So I took Lucy (my Maltese) to the vet yesterday.

Had to get the appropriate travel documents for her re-entry into the US, something I’ve done a number of times in several different countries.  Unlike most globe-trotting animal lovers who leave their pets at home when traveling, Sara and I see fit to move the zoo with us where ever we happen to settle next.  Clearly this is not always the sanest of decisions. (See a post called “An unfortunate incident involving the international trafficking of canines and what I haven’t learned since then” to discover the comedy of errors associated with moving our larger dog Ralph to Vietnam.)

I should have known it didn’t bode well for the appointment, when I arrived at the office to find the vet standing outside in the driveway screaming, raging at 3 male members of his staff—face reddening, arms flailing.  Since my French is so bad and my Creole even worse, I have no idea what he was saying and no sense what set off the tantrum.  (See post called “A Tale of Miserable Failure: moanings of a second language learner”)  

I was unsure how to handle this initial incident and asked Junior, my driver, if I should go ahead and enter the compound, I thought there might be some Haitian etiquette about how to handle incidents of public raging, but Junior only shrugged, the international “I don’t know,” so I reluctantly ignored this show of veterinary angst and walked past the scene into the office. 

Maybe this was my mistake.

At any rate, the doctor raged for at least 10 minutes before entering with seeming calm, offering a “bon jour,” and proceeding to examine my freshly bathed Maltese.  When he was finished, he motioned me into his office for the paperwork part of our visit—generally a 3 document process: an international health certificate, an immigration form for the USDA (US Department of Agriculture), and a “Certificate for Domestic and International Airline Travel.”  The doctor happily generated the health certificate, but refused to sign the other two documents.”

“These are not my forms!” he insists.

Confused, I agree, “No they aren’t.  One is a US immigration form and the other is generated by the airline.”

Again—“These are not my forms.  I will not sign.  You do not need these.  The health certificate is all you need.”

This time I try respectful disagreement, “Actually, every time I have returned my dogs to the US, I’ve needed these forms.”

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years.  You do not need these forms.”

“Well, my experience has been otherwise,” I try to reason.  “The airline and immigration have always asked me for these forms.  You signed them for me when I was here in October.”

“These are not my forms.  I will not sign.”  He has degenerated into a ranting-raging specimen of veterinary medicine—full on arms flailing, the whole raging apparatus in high gear—pissed off on speed!

“Well, just to be on the safe side, would you please sign them?” I try the pity appeal.

“These are not my forms.”

Slams the health certificate and invoice on the desk and walks out of the room.  I call Richard the head of Sara’s security department, the one we call Papa Bear, because we fully believe Richard can fix just about anything—as evidenced by a track record of previous salvation attempts delivered.  Score several for the home team!

To my disbelief, however, Richard’s dressing down of the dear doctor accomplishes nothing.  The doctor stands, tears the health certificate into pieces and shouts,

“I do not like your attitude!” exits stage right.  I think I’ve been dismissed.  Richard and I have lost this round.

Round two—

Junior drives me to another vet.  I’m crying on the phone to Sara the entire way—fully believing, irrationally so, that the second vet will tantrum with equal earnest and I will be stuck in Haiti with my dogs—

Forever—

Since, I’ve not fully recovered my composure upon arrival, Junior accompanies me into the office of vet number 2, clearly thinking I may need his moral support, if not his driverly expertise in this document getting endeavor.  However, Dr. Calixte, actually, is lovely—an older Haitian gentleman, who speaks little English.  But he’s confused.

“Doctor not at his office?”

“No, he was there, he just refused to sign my documents.”

“Ah, you do not have appointment?” 

“No, we had an appointment at 3 o’clock,” I clarify.  (Since we have arrived unannounced at his office, the vet, perhaps, assumes we’re in the habit of randomly raiding veterinary offices in the greater Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.)

Ultimately, however, Dr. Calixte understands enough to intervene.

And, to be honest, I don’t know exactly what was said, or how I acquired the sympathetic, document-signing approval of the doctor, but after several exchanges between Junior and the Dr. Calixte in Creole and several more with Papa Bear Richard on the phone—in French—my new veterinary ally examines Lucy, and agrees, with a grandfatherly bed-side manner, to generate a health certificate and sign the appropriate forms when Junior returns with them later.

To make a long story short, Junior drives me home; I generate new forms for the vet; Junior takes the forms to Dr. Calixte’s office; Junior returns an hour later, amidst monsoonal rains, with a damp health certificate and both the airline and USDA forms signed and stamped.

Junior is my hero—Dr. Calixte, a fellow champion!  Round two—victory for the home team!

Writing this now a day later, I should clarify that the ultimate winning in this game will be our successful reentry into the US tomorrow and our safe arrival in Kentucky the day after that.

Please be assured, however, that I’ve calmed down, regained the resolve necessary to exit Haiti, and can now clearly recognize the comic moments in what, at the time, seemed a tragic encounter with Dr. Wulff (his real name).

Clearly his bark was worse than his bite!

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An unfortunate incident involving the international trafficking of canines and what I haven’t learned since then


Okay, I’m forced to face an ugly fact–my life in Port-au-Prince has gone to the dogs—quite literally.  I know most folks don’t traipse the planet, canine companions in tow, but Sara and I, for whatever reason, see fit to move our mutts to whichever corner of the globe is hosting the latest in earth-shaking disasters.  And so, Ralph and Lucy have hijacked this half of Hispaniola wagging their way into the very heart of earthquake recovery, and I’m not even half-way kidding.

But to highlight the kind of misadventures likely to abound when transporting pets to unlikely international destinations, this post explains what happened when we moved our 40 pound Terrier mix named Ralph, not to Haiti, but to Vietnam over a year ago.

It even started off badly—when Sara’s father dropped Ralph and I at the airport in Lexington with a crate that proved to be, after meticulous measuring by an airline employee (measuring that took over an hour, I might add) one inch too big—one inch too large for the smallish regional jet we were taking to Detroit—the first leg of our journey to Hanoi.

I wasn’t happy to hear this.  I wasn’t happy at all to wait two full days till we could be rebooked and Ralph could be re-crated in a kennel a mere sand-papering would have made small enough in the first place.  But I remained calm.  I went home, over-sized crate in tow, and waited. 

Forty eight hours later—

An additional hundred dollars poorer but an appropriately-sized kennel richer—we were back at the airport, Sara’s father supervising the once more meticulous measuring, me hyperventilating in the corner, afraid I’d be another two days’ waiting. 

But we passed inspection.  Ralph was loaded.  I tried to relax, knowing the 27 hour flight to Hanoi can be exhausting.  But things went well, with me checking at each layover to be sure Ralph was transferred to the next plane and ready for the next leg of a very long trip.  Things continued to go well—

Until South Korea—

In Seoul, I again checked on Ralph upon arrival and was assured by a Korean Airline employee that he was well and would be transferred for the trip to Hanoi.

So I did what any American, living in a country with no western fast food besides Kentucky Fried Chicken, would do—I went to Burger King for my last supper of Whopper and fries, knowing it would be at least another 90 days and a second resurrection of Christ before I’d eat another meal with equal amounts of artery-clogging cholesterol and heart-stopping good taste.

Two hours later and that much closer to an early grave, I waited at the gate to board the flight to Hanoi.  I was exhausted, relieved to hear, “At this time we would like to begin boarding Koran Air flight . . .” and only a little alarmed when an airline representative began paging someone whose name vaguely resembled my own. 

Two minutes later—

Having dragged my baggage though a maze of travel-weary passengers, I was told, “Madam, you not go on this flight.”

“Excuse me?”  Surely I had misheard.  South Koreans’ speaking English could sometimes be hard for me to understand.  “Could you repeat that?” I apologized.  I had been traveling for twenty-two hours; I wasn’t processing well.

“Dog not go on this plane.”

“I’m sorry.  I don’t understand.”

“No room for dog on this flight.”

“But we’ve had this reservation for weeks.  There must be some mistake.”

“No dog in plane.”

Eventually I understood, though I never fully understood why,

–that we could not leave that night,

–that there were no more flights to Hanoi before morning,

–that we might not be able to go even then (there were no guarantees),

–that the airline would bring Ralph to me,

–that I could go to an hotel,

–that Ralph could not.

Floating somewhere near the ceiling, looking down on this silly woman in the ridiculous Asian airport misadventure, I realized this was not a good situation.  I realized the woman might be close to losing it.

Ninety minutes later—

I still hadn’t gotten Sara on the phone and knew that by then she had already left for the airport in Hanoi (translator in tow) ready to meet the quarantine official, whose “special fee” she’d pay to compensate for our late night arrival and the overtime he’d work to process Ralph’s entry into Vietnam without incident.

To make an excruciatingly long and less-than-pleasant story a bit shorter, I should mention the follow facts:

–I ultimately did get Sara on the phone.  Sara paid the official’s special fee (since, of course, it wasn’t his fault we didn’t arrive) and arranged to meet him again the next day, when, of course, there would also be an extra fee, since it would be Tuesday and there is always a special fee on Tuesdays.

–Forbidden by airport officials to remove Ralph from the crate he had already occupied for more than twenty hours, I pushed his perfectly-sized kennel around the airport all night on a luggage cart, telling myself repeatedly that if only  I got through the next ten hours, I would be able to take just about anything.  Cholera included, I now hope.

I should have known it would be challenging:  taking a 40 pound, blonde terrier to Vietnam, where the meat of medium-sized, light-skinned canines is still considered a delicacy.  And though it ended well, concluded with Ralph arriving uneaten in Hanoi, it proved so crazy-making along the way, I sanely decided to bring him here to Haiti this past summer. 

However, that trip proved less eventful—except for his traveling companions on the flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince—the 10,000 chicks he still hasn’t stopped chirping about.

But that’s another story, for another day—another lesson not quite learned.