I recently had a friend move across the country with two dogs. I have had many customers that are moving from the DFW area. As a Realtor in North Texas, preparing sellers for a move is part of my job. She is going to share her experience here...learn from this if you are moving away from the North Texas area and traveling a long distance, and you have animals in the car.
She recounted her experience here for my blog...
I have two dogs. One is a boxer mix, and the other is a pit mix. Our boxer mix is an anxious dog. He is terrified of thunderstorms and afraid of walking across tiled floors (he is worried he will slip and fall). Our pit mix is two french fries short of a Happy Meal. She is very laid back and just goes with the flow. The only time she gets anxious is when she is late getting her supper. So we start the four day trip on a Friday morning. Our boxer mix isn't thrilled about car rides...he typically just immediately lays down and tries to sleep...similar to my husband. The pit mix likes to hang her head out the window and let her jowls whip in the wind. Two hours in, my boxer mix had enough.
Lesson #1: Know what your animal can handle in the car.
Once he realized this wasn't the short ride to the vet. He started panting...and shaking. I knew I was in trouble; there was no way he could do four days of this. We decided the only thing we could do was to pull off the highway and find the nearest vet. I walk in, explain my situation, and plead with them to help me. Their waiting room was full of people. It was a Friday afternoon. I knew if I didn't do something soon, I would have a long weekend ahead of me. The vet said they would give him medication if I could get my old vet (in the state I had left) to call in and say he was safe to prescribe medicine. Great! I step out to call my old vet.
Lesson #2: Don't use a vet that doesn't like animals.
I explain the situation to my vet, and this is what they say to me, "I am so sorry, he is two months past his yearly check-up. We can't give another vet permission to give him medicine." This is no joke. This is what I was told. After using this vet for four years, this is how they help their clients who are stuck in a terrible situation. I went back in, at this point I was in tears. I explained to the new vet that the old vet hates animals and hates life and refuses to help. After the new vet picked their jaws up off the ground, they asked if it was possible to at least have the old vet fax over the records. Although, I didn't want to call them back (our conversation didn't end well), I did. And they did fax everything over. When the new vet saw that he was updated on all of his shots, he was even more floored that they wouldn't simply call and say he was safe to give medications to. The new vet made room to see my pup and prescribed him a drug to make the rest of our trip more comfortable. The drug was meant to calm him down...if I only figured out how to slip it into my husband's breakfast. Ha!
Lesson #3: Show appreciation for people/businesses that go out of their way.
As soon as I got back in my vehicle, and my boxer-mix was calm...I hopped onto Facebook and looked them up. I gave them an excellent rating and shared my experience, and their willingness to show grace to someone who they knew wouldn't be a repeat customer. They could have easily turned me away, but they didn't. AND they didn't charge me an arm and a leg when they could have taken advantage of my desperate situation.
Learn from my mistakes. When you know you are traveling a long distance, know how your animals will react to that…and have a back up in place if it isn't what you planned. I was unprepared…never again!
Talk to you soon!
Your Top North Texas Real Estate Agent - Brenda Debus
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