Back at home with Carlota

Back home safe and sound. Amen! Got into cold HK this morning to find Alpha, our helper, and Carlota doing well. This time I did not fuss around with Carlota the minute I walked into the flat to avoid the scare Joel and I had when we arrived back from Rio last time.

In case you are not really aware who Carlota is, I'll tell you. Although you may think from photographs that she is a boxer dog, in reality, for my eyes only, she is my third child. It's like she is a "human dog", LOL, and I salute her for that.

She is a 11 year old puppy and has been with us since she was 6 weeks old. We got her in Jo'burg and she has been a fantastic, full on, very participative member of our lives. When we were to move from Jo'burg to HK, Joel got 4 quotes for our move. Three were on moving companies and one was on "travel-pet" type of service. P., Joel's boss at the time, tried to raise his eyes from his desk as he was looking into the quotes and ask Joel if the dogs (at the time, we had Siggy too), should really come to HK. Joel, in his traditional calm "trader" mode's voice, saw what was coming and interrupted his boss right at the beginning of his sentence and said: "P. I did try to talk the 3 girls into not taking them and I was instantly fried" to what his boss replied "ok then, we'll take the dogs to HK". Amen to P.'s understanding.

But anyway, when Joel and I arrived back from Rio, Carlota really scared us to death (I think I lost about 5 kg on her account and gained some good half dozen gray hairs in that instant). This is what happened: we called our helper from the airport train to let her know we were about to get home. This is understood between Alpha and I as: "please take Carlota out now for a pee, so that she doesn't pee on us nor on the floor as she demonstrates her happiness with our arrival.

We got to HK station and got a taxi up the hill, got into our lobby, into the elevator, pressed 14, got to our door and on purpose, I rang the door bell rather than using our own key. Carlota, as expected, started barking, I barked back at her, called her name, she barked a bit more and all was very festive. She barking from inside, me barking from outside and Joel, kindly unloading the lift, "so happy" with all the noise!! Then, the helper opened the door and the real festive reception started. She jumped at Joel and I, we played back at her, we called her name, saying how much we had missed her, she didn't pee, we started rolling in the luggage and as I turned towards Carlota for some more cuddling... she looked at me and totally collapsed!

There she was, completely collapsed on the floor, still breathing, with her eyes half opened and half closed... we both caressing and calling her and absolutely no response. I started saying, with my stupid baby's voice, that I was going to get her toys... no response... then I said I was going to get her biscuits (which is her total passion) and no response.... how awful! You know how thoughts go fast, so all I could think was; "I am glad she waited for us to arrive back and then die and I am glad she is dieing like she really was, a happy puppy, but please Carlota, not now, I am not prepared yet.... " then I said "Joel, she is dieing"... and Joel replies.... "call the vet and at the same time, let's keep on calling for her."

So, to make this huge story shorter; this dog is, thanks be to our good God, still here with us, still a happy senior lady and what she had was diagnosed as a faint due to lack of oxygen given so much happiness to seeing us. Can you believe it??

This time, I did not ring the bell, did not call for her, but she jumped and did her usual thing. She almost collapsed again, but this time she just froze on her 4 legs for 1 or 1.5 minutes and then back to her usual self. Oh honestly, how I love this dog!