Our epic adventure begins...
by L:
Blah blah blah... left for airport at way-too-early-o'clock... cats were NOT impressed... Teddy, Sherman, and Twinkie were relatively easy to corral and crate... Mr Popper, on the other hand, decided to hide behind the washing machine in my suite... the bolted-to-the-wall washing machine. 15 minutes before our taxi was due to arrive. Niiiiiice. We tried everything we could to get him out - finally managed using a broom and other Useful Tools to get him... just in the nick of time. Poor terrified little fellow!!!! S has been so awesome, running up and down the stairs taking last bits of stuff down to the dumpster and all - she must be exhausted but of course never complains!!! I am so lucky to have her!!! We finally got all the luggage down and my 2 cats, am just waiting in the lobby while S gets her two boys... our wonderful neighbour Warren came down just to say goodbye, even though it is VERY early in the morning... will miss such nice neighbours!
Cannot say enough about how friendly and helpful and accomodating Westjet were for us and our 4 cats... they are awesome! it took S about a half hour to do the paperwork with the agent, all the animal documentation - very thorough - then we sat in the waiting area for an hour till just before boarding - then they had someone come and check Sherman and Twinkie, who were in kennels to go in the pets area below in the plane - check for contraband in the kennels (you never know what those little mischief makers might try to smuggle on board!!!) and then S and Teddy and Mr Popper (aka Moo) went through security screening... both of them were terrified, of course... took me almost 5 min to get Moo out of his carrier (they check them through the xray thingy so cats have to be carried through the arch that humans go through)... poor little niblet!!!! Nice security man wasn't too pleased about the emergency can of food I had for the boys in my carry on bag or the nail clippers (forgot about them) in my purse but he let us through... then, since we had waited till boarding in the front lounge before going through security, we went directly on to the plane for the first leg (5ish hours, to Toronto)...
Turned out we could not bring the cats up to sit on the seat between us during the flight - they had to stay in their squashed little carriers under the seat the whole time. Mr Popper, suprisingly, was relatively stable - neither of them made a peep the whole time - but Teddy was FREAKED. By the time we reached Pearson in Toronto the poor little fellow was drooling horribly and had voided in his carrier - he was just beyond terrified. Once we deplaned and reached the waiting area for our next flight S cleaned him up and we changed the absorbent pad in his crate he seemed to settle down some...
second leg of the trip was much shorter and we arrived in Nova Scotia ahead of schedule... Sherman and Twinkie were very glad to see us - both seemed calm but Sherman was pretty scared... but at least that part of the trip was over... a quick checkout by security regarding Covid and we were on our way - (prebooked) CJ's taxi was ready and waiting for us... an hour and a quarter(ish) later we were pulling up to our new NS home!