Sniffer Pup in Training


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Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne » Essendon
August 29th 2022
Published: September 26th 2022
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We awake to that inevitable sad day when we have to start the tortuously long 25 hour trip home.

There seem to be a lot of fancy looking black limousines waiting outside our Athens hotel. We can’t tell who’s inside them, if anyone, because they’ve all got blacked out windows. Issy says they’re picking up businessmen to take them off to one of the many nearby sex shops or strip clubs. It’s ten o’clock on a Monday morning, so I would have thought that most businessmen should now be off doing their “business”, although I suppose that word could have a couple of different meanings in that context.

We’re flying back to Melbourne via Doha in Qatar. We seem to have struck it lucky at Athens Airport with our airline, Qatar; the check in queue is a lot shorter than for a lot of the other airlines. Which brings me to another subject I‘ve given way too much thought to. Why do they leave all those seatbelt-like straps in place at airports when there are almost no queues. Do they not think that their passengers get enough exercise already?

We’re never quite sure exactly who’s on whose side this week in the Middle East, but there’s always the trusty flight map to lend some assistance. We take a sharp right hand turn somewhere over eastern Turkey, which suggests that if any skirmishes broke out now it would probably be Qatar/Iran v Iraq/Syria.

They seem to be extremely security conscious here in Doha, perhaps almost verging on the paranoid. They scan us and our hand luggage again as we get off the plane. It's a bit late for that I would have thought, and anyway I'm not sure quite how they think anyone might have managed to load any explosives on board mid-flight. ... and not satisfied with that our hand luggage is scanned yet again before they’ll let us into the departure gate. Issy says they don’t trust Aussies; I’m not quite sure why. Maybe they think we all barrack for Iraq/Syria?

We’ve got the two seats nearest the window from Doha to Melbourne. I like being near the window; there’s usually something to look at. But as always there’s that well known downside of seats that aren’t on the aisle - it’s a thirteen hour flight, and that’s a long time to hang on without going to the bathroom. … and the young guy next to us is asleep, and boy is he asleep - he’s snoring his head off, and he’s wearing a mask over his eyes and industrial grade ear muffs. He looks so peaceful…. well aside perhaps from the snoring bit. "We’ll just wait for him to wake up" says Issy. Three hours later and he’s still in dreamland, and Issy says she can wait no longer. Hmmmm. This is awkward.…. and stressful. I’m sure there must be a YouTube video on what you’re supposed to do in this situation. I make a mental note to watch it before our next trip, but that’s not going to help our current predicament. I hope he’s not one of those guys who looks peaceful when they’re asleep, but then turns into a raving lunatic if you try to wake him up. I nudge him gently and wait for the attack. But no, he stands up and politely let’s us past.… So another mental note - stop overthinking things….

We’d heard about a recent foot and mouth disease outbreak in Indonesia that’s making our Aussie farmers and quarantine authorities a bit nervous. We haven’t been anywhere near Indonesia but we’re still singled out by the authorities at Melbourne Airport for “random testing”. I didn’t know sniffer dogs could detect foot and mouth disease, but it seems I may have been mistaken. We’re lined up with twenty or so other passengers and their luggage, and they set the dogs on us … well in this case one dog, a cute labrador puppy in training. The officers plant something on the luggage belonging to the passengers next to us, but it seems our pup might still need a little more training - he misses it completely until his handler holds him up in front of it. We wait for the handlers to let the experienced dogs loose, but no, they just let us all leave. I sincerely hope this isn’t our only line of defence against the dreaded disease.

We’re home and we know it - it’s dark, wet and cold.

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26th September 2022

Stop over thinking
LOL. We are always hesitant to disturb people on planes but we've all been in the same situation.
1st October 2022

Overthinking and home
Many thanks for reading. Glad we're home .... well except maybe for the weather.....
27th September 2022

Welcome home...
You have had quite a trip!
1st October 2022

We're home
Many thanks for reading. it was indeed quite a trip!
3rd December 2022

Home time...
Oh wow, what an absolutely amazing trip you and Issy have had. It's no mean feat in these newly post-covid times. What an adorable pup-in-training moment you witnessed. I wonder if it'll go the way of the 'failed' guide dogs we see for adoption every so often? I'm very fond of our biosecurity beagles at Hobart Airport :)
24th June 2023

Sniffer pup
I always find myself getting told off for trying to pat these guys. Too adorable.

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