Looks like United is the only carrier to allow carry-on dogs on international flights. That works fine for me - it's $125 to keep her in the cabin, $225 to check her in the cargo hold. And it's so worth it for her to not be in the big, noisy, terrifying cargo hold alone.
Now to talk to the vet about possible sedatives. Yes? No? The second leg of the journey is 11 hours, so I'm not sure how restless she's going to get. Maybe just stuffing a kong with something really difficult will be good enough.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
I don't know how I'll survive
I just realized that they don't have girl scout cookies in Japan.
ADD TO TO-DO LIST: Make friends with a Troop leader before leaving.
ADD TO TO-DO LIST: Make friends with a Troop leader before leaving.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Bringing Elsa to Japan: T minus 107 Days
The first thing you need to know is that I started this process back in November. And that's the advice I give to anyone thinking of applying and bringing their dog: start prepping now.
If you know nothing else about my process, it's that I function well on timelines, and that's the one thing that the importation literature defines quite clearly. You miss so much as a day or a single sheet of paper, and the 12-hour wait period turns into a 6-month quarantine. Needless to say, I was totally on top of this since the day HP decided to apply for the program.
The other thing to note is that my vet's practice is awesome. I'm on a pet insurance plan, and though they only get pets who need to travel internationally every so often, they had procedures in place. And they bent the rules for me: because of my schedule, I could drop Elsa off in the morning, they'd do what needed to be done, and I could pick her up on my lunch break, only paying the supplies' cost. They never charged me an office visit fee, which saved me a lot of money.
Point the third: This can be damn expensive. As I mentioned in my "Here's the dog!" post, my dog is part of my livelihood, and not just a personal pet. I also was very cautious to budget a large chunk of money for unforeseen medical expenses her first year of life even before I signed a contract with her breeder. I'll be putting down how much everything cost me, but unless you have a similar arrangement with your vet, don't bank on getting a lot of breaks.
So, here's my timeline, based off of the (adorably illustrated) official guidelines in the link to the left. I gave myself some leeway, but not much.
--
11/17/10 - 287 days [DONE]
Elsa is spayed. While she's under, I have her microchipped.
NOTE: Make sure the microchip your vet uses has the International ISO (11784 and 11785) standard or Japanese readers can't read it and it's worthless.
Spent: $50 on microchip.
12/10/10 - 264 days [DONE]
She's already had one, but Japan requires two rabies vaccinations after microchipping, no less than 31 days apart. So Elsa gets another rabies vaccination on her 3-week spay checkup.
NOTE: Most vets already do this, but the vaccine has to be killed-tissue in order to be valid. Still doesn't hurt to check.
Spent: $15 on vaccine.
1/11/11 - 233 days [DONE]
Elsa has her second mandatory rabies vaccine, 31 days on the nose.
Spent: $15 on vaccine.
2/15/11 - 198 days [DONE]
Elsa has her titer (measure of rabies antibodies, making sure the vaccines took) drawn. The vet draws and labels it for free, spins it into serum, and I put it in my cooler to bring to the UPS outpost.
NOTE: The only laboratory that Japan accepts in the USA is the Kansas State rabies lab, and they're just as much a stickler for paperwork that Japan is. Mislabel something, and your sample is worthless. For what it's worth, though, the staff are very friendly and happy to answer your bajillion questions.
Spent: $5 on ice packs, $80 for the titer, $120 for overnight mail.
2/15/11 - 198 days [CURRENT]
Wait six months. No, seriously. From the day the titer is drawn, the dog has a 180-day wait period in the country of origin. No trips to Canada, folks.
NOTE: The wait is at least 180 days, and the titer is good for 2 years, so if you wanted to get this done very early and just wait around comfortably, you definitely could.
3/3/11 - TITER RESULTS [DONE]
It could take anywhere from 3 to 10 weeks to get your serum antibody results, and they need to be at least 0.5 IU/mL to be acceptable. Imagine my surprise when Elsa's comes back 4.68, roughly 9 times as immune as necessary. Rabies lab called her "robust and resilient" with a laugh when I called to make sure I hadn't raised the Hulk. Guess that's what happens when your pup gets 3 rabies vaccines within a six-month span.
Back to waiting. Yayy.
Between 7/1 and 7/15 - T > 40 days
Notify Narita Airport that I'm importing the dog.
NOTE: The application, and instructions on how to fill it out in English, are on the linked website.
Between 8/21 and 8/30 - T 7-2 days
Have an APHIS vet fill out the Export Certificate and vet forms.
9/1/11 - 0 days
Get my ass to JFK Int'l and get ready to fly to Tokyo.
--
And that's the plan.
Elsa is small enough (six pounds, I'm not kidding) that I'm going to see if she can fly in the cabin with me. So, between her and my laptop, I should have my hands full for the long 12 hours it'll take to get to Narita.
I'll update on this process as it goes on, but for now, this is where things stand. I feel like such a boss right now.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Flashcards, anyone?
The first thing I did was start learning Hiragana.
Brief rundown of writing systems:
Hiragana = for phonetics of japanese words/words there are no kanji for. Softer, prettier, more complicated.
Katakana = for phonetics of foreign words. Blocky and sharp.
Kanji = the big, complicated guys. Stand for words, not sounds. Schoolchildren are required to learn 1,000, and 1,900 is considered fluent. Yikes.
So, baby steps. I will learn to communicate, even if I have to look like a third-grader spelling everything out phonetically.
POINT OF EXCITEMENT: Japanese is entirely phonetic. Spelled just like it sounds, none of these ridiculous pronunciation of german-french mishmashes that English has in abundance. Maybe not so hopeless after all?
Google searches will find you kana charts easily. Learning is more than memorizing off of a chart, though, so writing them is actually a huge help. Get some graph paper and write the characters in four-block squares. Strokes go top-to-bottom, left-to-right. I had a surprisingly easy time with hiragana, but katakana kicked my ass. For some reason, I just can't commit it to memory. Maybe because it's not as pretty. Or I haven't been practicing as much as I should. OR BOTH.
Anyway, something I've found really helpful is this simple little site designed with a flashcard mechanic to help you remember the writing systems. You can choose to go from english to japanese or vice versa, clicking on the appropriate translation in the buttons below. You can also set your proficiency level (level 1 is the first 10 characters, 2 is the next 10, on and on until you get to "all") and see a letter grade based on your correct answers.
I can get a perfect score on the hiragana game, but haven't even tried the katakana one. When I do manage a perfect on the utmost level, though, I'm going to reward myself somehow. Like wearing an "I'm number one!" blue prize ribbon on my jacket for a few days.
It's not flashy and it's not complicated, which actually works best, I think. I do drills once in a while, especially to work on the three or four characters I constantly get mixed up. It's a good tool, and, like any links I post in the future, is going up in the link sidebar to the left. (To the left, to the left...)
T minus 107 days.
Brief rundown of writing systems:
Hiragana = for phonetics of japanese words/words there are no kanji for. Softer, prettier, more complicated.
Katakana = for phonetics of foreign words. Blocky and sharp.
Kanji = the big, complicated guys. Stand for words, not sounds. Schoolchildren are required to learn 1,000, and 1,900 is considered fluent. Yikes.
So, baby steps. I will learn to communicate, even if I have to look like a third-grader spelling everything out phonetically.
POINT OF EXCITEMENT: Japanese is entirely phonetic. Spelled just like it sounds, none of these ridiculous pronunciation of german-french mishmashes that English has in abundance. Maybe not so hopeless after all?
Google searches will find you kana charts easily. Learning is more than memorizing off of a chart, though, so writing them is actually a huge help. Get some graph paper and write the characters in four-block squares. Strokes go top-to-bottom, left-to-right. I had a surprisingly easy time with hiragana, but katakana kicked my ass. For some reason, I just can't commit it to memory. Maybe because it's not as pretty. Or I haven't been practicing as much as I should. OR BOTH.
Anyway, something I've found really helpful is this simple little site designed with a flashcard mechanic to help you remember the writing systems. You can choose to go from english to japanese or vice versa, clicking on the appropriate translation in the buttons below. You can also set your proficiency level (level 1 is the first 10 characters, 2 is the next 10, on and on until you get to "all") and see a letter grade based on your correct answers.
I can get a perfect score on the hiragana game, but haven't even tried the katakana one. When I do manage a perfect on the utmost level, though, I'm going to reward myself somehow. Like wearing an "I'm number one!" blue prize ribbon on my jacket for a few days.
It's not flashy and it's not complicated, which actually works best, I think. I do drills once in a while, especially to work on the three or four characters I constantly get mixed up. It's a good tool, and, like any links I post in the future, is going up in the link sidebar to the left. (To the left, to the left...)
T minus 107 days.
 |
| for serious. |
Statement of Purpose
This blog is meant as a resource.
I started panicking a little when I saw how few resources there are out there for JET spouses. Sure, there's the embassy, your spouse and (if you're really hard up) Skype. And going through the JET forums wasn't any more productive, either - most of it was asking about healthcare and children.
I'm going to want a job.
I'm going to want to talk to people.
I'm going to want to go to supermarkets and shop.
And I know I don't want to go crazy doing it.
I've heard wonderful things about the JET program, but I've heard just as much about bored-to-tears SOs who spent all their time in the house or talking online to friends thousands of miles away. The loneliness and anxiety is understandable, sure - but I know that I don't want to burden my husband, also having just moved to Japan, by bottling it up until I'm like a volcano, spewing incoherent overly-emotional nonsense all over him.
I'm going to go out and talk to people in my (as of right now) very broken Japanese. I bought Rosetta Stone, ironically enough from a JET participant who turned down his acceptance due to the earthquakes. Also, I can now read and write Hiragana pretty confidently, which means close to nothing when you have no idea what the words mean. But progress, my good man! Progress!
I'll post language resources and learning games. I'll talk about the draining process of bringing over a pet and getting a visa. I guarantee that there will be posts to the idea of "WHERE AM I WHAT AM I DOING OH GOD WHAAAT" and an equal number of morose, homesick posts that will make you nauseous with their melodramatic sentimentality.
There will also be hilarity, I'm sure. I'm not the most coordinated person, but I make up for it with enthusiasm, so at the very least, I will serve as entertainment for the Japanese people. And, hopefully, readers who can laugh at the things I get myself or HP into.
I will eat all the food. ALL OF IT. And then tell you what it is, whether you want to hear it or not. Look forward to a spectacular amount of food posts. And supermarket guidelines for when you want to attempt Japanese cooking. Which I will also post on, if I ever figure out the conversion to metric cooking measurements.
I'll post about the nitty-gritty stuff, too, like housing and visas and transportation. And how my relationship with HP changes as our intense first year married gets infinitely more stressful.
There will also be cute pictures of my dog to counteract my grumblings about life, love, and the mass transit system.
In the end, though, I want this to be a place where significant others, husbands, wives, and even the people staying in the States can have a place to ask questions and bitch freely about their frustrations and worries. Moving anywhere with only your spouse to depend on takes its toll on your mental health, relationship, and way of life. It's terrifying, and it's exciting. It fluctuates daily, especially for those who don't have the happy talent of masking their nervousness with idiocy, like I do. And I hope that this blog becomes a way of staying stable and busy and sane.
But ultimately, I want people in my situation to know that they're not alone.
And, on a more selfish level, that I'm not alone either.
I started panicking a little when I saw how few resources there are out there for JET spouses. Sure, there's the embassy, your spouse and (if you're really hard up) Skype. And going through the JET forums wasn't any more productive, either - most of it was asking about healthcare and children.
I'm going to want a job.
I'm going to want to talk to people.
I'm going to want to go to supermarkets and shop.
And I know I don't want to go crazy doing it.
I've heard wonderful things about the JET program, but I've heard just as much about bored-to-tears SOs who spent all their time in the house or talking online to friends thousands of miles away. The loneliness and anxiety is understandable, sure - but I know that I don't want to burden my husband, also having just moved to Japan, by bottling it up until I'm like a volcano, spewing incoherent overly-emotional nonsense all over him.
I'm going to go out and talk to people in my (as of right now) very broken Japanese. I bought Rosetta Stone, ironically enough from a JET participant who turned down his acceptance due to the earthquakes. Also, I can now read and write Hiragana pretty confidently, which means close to nothing when you have no idea what the words mean. But progress, my good man! Progress!
I'll post language resources and learning games. I'll talk about the draining process of bringing over a pet and getting a visa. I guarantee that there will be posts to the idea of "WHERE AM I WHAT AM I DOING OH GOD WHAAAT" and an equal number of morose, homesick posts that will make you nauseous with their melodramatic sentimentality.
There will also be hilarity, I'm sure. I'm not the most coordinated person, but I make up for it with enthusiasm, so at the very least, I will serve as entertainment for the Japanese people. And, hopefully, readers who can laugh at the things I get myself or HP into.
I will eat all the food. ALL OF IT. And then tell you what it is, whether you want to hear it or not. Look forward to a spectacular amount of food posts. And supermarket guidelines for when you want to attempt Japanese cooking. Which I will also post on, if I ever figure out the conversion to metric cooking measurements.
I'll post about the nitty-gritty stuff, too, like housing and visas and transportation. And how my relationship with HP changes as our intense first year married gets infinitely more stressful.
There will also be cute pictures of my dog to counteract my grumblings about life, love, and the mass transit system.
In the end, though, I want this to be a place where significant others, husbands, wives, and even the people staying in the States can have a place to ask questions and bitch freely about their frustrations and worries. Moving anywhere with only your spouse to depend on takes its toll on your mental health, relationship, and way of life. It's terrifying, and it's exciting. It fluctuates daily, especially for those who don't have the happy talent of masking their nervousness with idiocy, like I do. And I hope that this blog becomes a way of staying stable and busy and sane.
But ultimately, I want people in my situation to know that they're not alone.
And, on a more selfish level, that I'm not alone either.
The Tiny Tornado
Otherwise known as Elsa, Elsa-Beast or Brat.
I have an extraordinarily ferocious year-old papillon. She loves shredding things and eating clementines. And she's one of the most intelligent creatures I've ever met.
I've worked with a lot of dogs in my time, but this one is by far the easiest I've ever had to train, and the most naturally eager to please. I've taught her a bunch of meaningless commands (ex: spin in circles, "where's my nose?", "go bother your papa") just to keep her occupied. She's litterbox-trained, as we live on the third floor and her bladder is the size of a walnut. She trained herself (I can't take credit for this) to sit at the door when we're out in public or visiting a friend when she needs to go outside.
We've worked hard together. She's wonderfully socialized (except she still goes barreling toward toddlers with reckless abandon and tail wagging), has excellent leash manners, won't take anything from your hands that you haven't told her to, and instantly switches into "lap dog" mode whenever she's in a lap or pair of arms. It's taken a lot of trial and error and a lot of work, but now that we've got the basics down, I'm looking forward to training her on agility courses and obedience trials.
This dog isn't just my pet; she's an integral part of my life and career. Which is why I'm going to be bringing her with us overseas.
Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it's stressful. And yes, there are virtually zero procedure resources for those of us looking to bring dogs over to Japan. Just a lot of forum posters saying "Don't bring your cat!" That is super unhelpful, internet. Thanks. But I can't picture being away from her for 2-4 years and still have the bond necessary to run trials, and I started this blog in the first place to make resources where we have none.
So I'm going to document every single thing I do to bring her across.
I have an extraordinarily ferocious year-old papillon. She loves shredding things and eating clementines. And she's one of the most intelligent creatures I've ever met.
 |
| this is my brat. |
I've worked with a lot of dogs in my time, but this one is by far the easiest I've ever had to train, and the most naturally eager to please. I've taught her a bunch of meaningless commands (ex: spin in circles, "where's my nose?", "go bother your papa") just to keep her occupied. She's litterbox-trained, as we live on the third floor and her bladder is the size of a walnut. She trained herself (I can't take credit for this) to sit at the door when we're out in public or visiting a friend when she needs to go outside.
We've worked hard together. She's wonderfully socialized (except she still goes barreling toward toddlers with reckless abandon and tail wagging), has excellent leash manners, won't take anything from your hands that you haven't told her to, and instantly switches into "lap dog" mode whenever she's in a lap or pair of arms. It's taken a lot of trial and error and a lot of work, but now that we've got the basics down, I'm looking forward to training her on agility courses and obedience trials.
This dog isn't just my pet; she's an integral part of my life and career. Which is why I'm going to be bringing her with us overseas.
Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it's stressful. And yes, there are virtually zero procedure resources for those of us looking to bring dogs over to Japan. Just a lot of forum posters saying "Don't bring your cat!" That is super unhelpful, internet. Thanks. But I can't picture being away from her for 2-4 years and still have the bond necessary to run trials, and I started this blog in the first place to make resources where we have none.
So I'm going to document every single thing I do to bring her across.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Husband-person
...henceforth referred to as HP.
HP is 26, born on Christmas Day. He has never forgiven retailers for hyping Christmas shopping up so much that parking becomes nigh-impossible in the weeks leading up to his birthday.
He likes yelling at people on the internet, being a writing and music junkie, and singing songs by randomly substituting my name into the lyrics.
One of the important things to note is that he is actually half Japanese. His father came over from Okinawa, met his mother in the south, and had two thoroughly ridiculous children, of which HP is the elder. So he has family over there and understands a smattering of the language, mostly in ludicrous insults and declarations of his own manliness.
Thankfully, neither his Okinawan nor Osakan family were hurt in the earthquakes or subsequent disasters.
Anyway, he studies learning. Via data analysis or educational software, he researches how, to what degree and under what circumstances people learn. Got his master's in it, in fact. Or he will, once his labwork is done this summer.
As for our relationship: I bring him instant noodles in the lab at 2am when all he's had to eat that day are beer and science. When I try to cheer him up by dressing in a skanky bee costume and only then think to go buy his favorite beer, I just go to the liquor store in the bee costume. Date nights often consist of working while the other plays the latest console game we're into and criticizing their in-game morality.
A supervillain and a robot crashed our wedding ceremony, which was conducted by Benjamin Franklin.
In short, we're kind of epic together. Which is why I have the utmost confidence in following him literally halfway across the globe.
He applied to the JET program and was listed as an ALT alternate, which was a disappointment and led to the getting-beer-in-a-bee-costume incident. It was the worst possible news for him, as that left us with uncertain housing prospects and tough job opportunities for him. I could quit at any time, but his job offers were for Adult Jobs, things that were salaried and would require a move on our part. We were still holding out for Japan, though, and the everyday tension was palpable. A very polite e-mail to the consulate told him that, while they couldn't be more specific, he was in the top third of the alternate list.
Which made waiting even tougher.
All of my Ask The Internet research recommended holding out and offered heartfelt "Hang in there!" posts that would be perfectly at home on a motivational poster. So I remained optimistic. Much to his irritation. He prefers to be realistic and vaguely reminiscent of Eeyore. And I made a vow to myself that if he did get placement after all, I was entitled to be gloriously smug for at least a week.
Of course, 25 days after receiving the initial e-mail, HP got The Call.
"Either I'm off the waitlist," he IMed via Gchat, "or something's wrong with my paperwork."
I was at work, so my cellphone was in my purse while I took out my aggrevation on United Healthcare's automated phone system. When I'd abused it enough to talk to a real person and get my questions answered, the following was waiting for me in Gchat:
HP: OI WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER YOUR PHONE WOMAN
Because I'm at work, sir. Like a responsible employee. So I told him just that.
HP: FINE, I GUESS I'LL JUST GO TO JAPAN BY MYSELF THEN
me: WHAAAT
HOLY CRAP
HP: WHEN I RETURN TO AMERICA, I HOPE YOU'LL HAVE LEARNED TO ANSWER YOUR PHONE
me: Did they say where?!!
HP: No.
me: When will we know?!
HOLY CRAP
CAN I PLEASE SAY I TOLD YOU SO
HP: 3 weeks or so
YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER YOU LIKE I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T ANSWER YOUR PHONE
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how he told me that we were moving to Japan come August.
I couldn't have pictured it happening any other way.
HP is 26, born on Christmas Day. He has never forgiven retailers for hyping Christmas shopping up so much that parking becomes nigh-impossible in the weeks leading up to his birthday.
He likes yelling at people on the internet, being a writing and music junkie, and singing songs by randomly substituting my name into the lyrics.
One of the important things to note is that he is actually half Japanese. His father came over from Okinawa, met his mother in the south, and had two thoroughly ridiculous children, of which HP is the elder. So he has family over there and understands a smattering of the language, mostly in ludicrous insults and declarations of his own manliness.
Thankfully, neither his Okinawan nor Osakan family were hurt in the earthquakes or subsequent disasters.
Anyway, he studies learning. Via data analysis or educational software, he researches how, to what degree and under what circumstances people learn. Got his master's in it, in fact. Or he will, once his labwork is done this summer.
As for our relationship: I bring him instant noodles in the lab at 2am when all he's had to eat that day are beer and science. When I try to cheer him up by dressing in a skanky bee costume and only then think to go buy his favorite beer, I just go to the liquor store in the bee costume. Date nights often consist of working while the other plays the latest console game we're into and criticizing their in-game morality.
A supervillain and a robot crashed our wedding ceremony, which was conducted by Benjamin Franklin.
In short, we're kind of epic together. Which is why I have the utmost confidence in following him literally halfway across the globe.
He applied to the JET program and was listed as an ALT alternate, which was a disappointment and led to the getting-beer-in-a-bee-costume incident. It was the worst possible news for him, as that left us with uncertain housing prospects and tough job opportunities for him. I could quit at any time, but his job offers were for Adult Jobs, things that were salaried and would require a move on our part. We were still holding out for Japan, though, and the everyday tension was palpable. A very polite e-mail to the consulate told him that, while they couldn't be more specific, he was in the top third of the alternate list.
Which made waiting even tougher.
All of my Ask The Internet research recommended holding out and offered heartfelt "Hang in there!" posts that would be perfectly at home on a motivational poster. So I remained optimistic. Much to his irritation. He prefers to be realistic and vaguely reminiscent of Eeyore. And I made a vow to myself that if he did get placement after all, I was entitled to be gloriously smug for at least a week.
Of course, 25 days after receiving the initial e-mail, HP got The Call.
"Either I'm off the waitlist," he IMed via Gchat, "or something's wrong with my paperwork."
I was at work, so my cellphone was in my purse while I took out my aggrevation on United Healthcare's automated phone system. When I'd abused it enough to talk to a real person and get my questions answered, the following was waiting for me in Gchat:
HP: OI WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER YOUR PHONE WOMAN
Because I'm at work, sir. Like a responsible employee. So I told him just that.
HP: FINE, I GUESS I'LL JUST GO TO JAPAN BY MYSELF THEN
me: WHAAAT
HOLY CRAP
HP: WHEN I RETURN TO AMERICA, I HOPE YOU'LL HAVE LEARNED TO ANSWER YOUR PHONE
me: Did they say where?!!
HP: No.
me: When will we know?!
HOLY CRAP
CAN I PLEASE SAY I TOLD YOU SO
HP: 3 weeks or so
YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER YOU LIKE I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T ANSWER YOUR PHONE
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how he told me that we were moving to Japan come August.
I couldn't have pictured it happening any other way.
I believe some introductions are in order
This is the part where I tell you who the hell I am and what the hell I do.
My name is Haz. I'm 24, female and 5'1". I'm Scottish and Russian on my dad's side (both parents emigrated, fun story) and Polish and German on my mother's.
I train and groom dogs, as well as do some medical billing for my mother after her previous secretary abruptly quit.
I enjoy April Smith and the Great Picture Show, Bitter:Sweet, and Yann Tiersen.
I can drink most grown men under the table, swear like a sailor, and have an inexplicable rapport with sea creatures.
And I was married for three days before being told that we were moving to Japan.
Start this bad boy like a car engine
Hello, blogosphere.
My name is Haz, and in a little over three months, I will be moving to Japan.
Holy. Fuck.
My name is Haz, and in a little over three months, I will be moving to Japan.
Holy. Fuck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)