Picking Up Our New Golden Retriever Puppy from LAX

One Wednesday we introduced Kona, our new golden retriever puppy,  into our family. She was shipped to us from Alaska and we picked her up at LAX. We didn’t know what to expect when you ship a live animal. Do we pick her up at baggage claim? Where do we go? We called Delta Dash and received all of the necessary information to pick our baby girl up. She left Alaska and was traveling for almost 12 hours. She must have been so scared.

When they first brought her out to us, this beautiful golden retriever puppy was looking at us with her sweet puppy eyes. We gave her water, took her out of her crate, and gave her lots of love. I can’t believe she is our puppy. We love her so much. Here’s a video of us greeting her:

And here is a picture with us with her outside of the Delta Dash pickup at LAX.

Her total transit time from Anchorage, Alaska to LAX was 12 hours. She boarded in Alaska at 11:30pm and landed in Seattle around 5:30am. Her flight was delayed so she didn’t arrive at LAX until 10:30am. Then they had to transport her to the cargo facility. We picked her up around noon on Wednesday.

When we got in the car I gave her one of her first toys – Tigger! Her crate was soiled (and understandably so) given the total transit time. I held her in my lap and she was so sweet and cuddly. When we got home we took her to the backyard and played with her. She loved playing in the grass and biting all the plants.

[pic of her in grass]

After we played with her for awhile we brought her upstairs and got settled. I took apart her crate and gave it a really good cleaning. We are going to be crate training her so it is important for her to love her crate. And who would love a crate that is smelly? While I was cleaning her crate I put a towel on the ground in case she wanted to lay down. She immediately snuggled up into the towel and was fast asleep within minutes.

[pic of her sleeping]

Once her crate was clean, I left the door open to see if she would wander inside. She sure did and went to sleep.

We had several visitors come over to meet Kona including her great-dog mommy Jonette, Diane, Lindsay J. and our friend Patty and her family.  Everyone loved her and she loved all the attention. By the time everyone left around 9:30, we took her to go to the bathroom and she was pooped. Marion came home from a work dinner at around 11 and she was so tired she couldn’t even come out of the crate to greet him.

We were expecting to be up all night taking Kona in and out to go to the bathroom, but she slept solid from 9:45 to 3:45am. Nice work, Kona! 6 hours of solid sleep on your first night in your forever home. Hope this is a foreshadow of many nights of good sleep to come!