The Pablo Saga

                                                                              
                                                                      Pablo

The Pablo Saga

What makes a story into a saga?  Well, I guess it's the length.  In the case of Pablo, a Cuban street dog discovered in Havana's Central Park last October, the story of Pablo has been a saga for some time now.  I started a file on Amanda and Pablo last fall when Amanda found The Aniplant Project through our website, theaniplantproject.org .  Today that file contains 175 email messages—all about Pablo.  Pablo's story would be a common rehoming tale of a Cuban street dog if it weren't for a plethora of twists and turns, reverses and disappointments.  As I like to eat desert first, I'll tell you Pablo finally arrived safely at Amanda's home yesterday, August 3, 2013.

Pablo had been the subject of another blog in this series—one titled, "Pablo," in early November 2012.  That blog told the story of Amanda finding a vet in Havana to help the sick little dog, a mix up in meeting the vet to receive Pablo, Pablo's being given to a stranger, and Nora's search for him nailing up posters all over Central Havana.  By the time Nora found Pablo, Amanda had already flown back home to Los Angeles.

A group of regular bench sitters in the park seemed to be Pablo's custodians when Nora found him.  You just don't take an apparently stray dog until you're sure it doesn't have a human who cares about it.  This group of young men liked Pablo and tried to care for him, but they couldn't buy him food, and medical care was unattainable for them. Nora, using her widely known public persona as a radio lecturer on animal protection, was able to convince the park sitters that Pablo had a better future with her than loose in the park.

The next step was to find a foster home for the young dog, who needed lots of rehabilitation.  Fortunately a long time family friend (La Señora) wanted to care for him.  The downside was she was 95 years old and couldn't get out and about in Havana.  For Pablo's entire stay in the foster home, Nora brought him food from the Aniplant headquarters' dog kitchen every day.  That was no small task, as it required a bus ride to and from her visits with Pablo and La Señora.  Also, Nora took Pablo to his vet appointments.

For some rehomed strays, vet visits during their foster care are straightforward affairs—rabies shots, tests for diseases, parasites, inoculations, etc.  Not so for poor Pablo who had a terrible case of kennel cough.  Weeks dragged into months as the vet tried to fight off Pablo's infection.  It was taking so long, I was afraid Amanda would give up hope of adopting him.  But Amanda, Nora, and the vet were persistent, and at long last he was healthy, and we could begin planning his travel to California.

Enter Davis Hawn, a friend of mine who loves dogs and has a Master's Degree in training service dogs.  Davis has been to Cuba twice and is planning to establish a service dog training center in Cuba.  To that end he had granted two scholarships for young Cuban adults to take a six week summer course in training dogs at Bergin University near Napa Valley in California.  June 24 was the date the two students were supposed to travel to the US for their course work.  Nora suggested that one of the students, Betty, could bring Pablo from Havana to Miami in a carrier with her baggage.  It seemed ideal.  In Miami, Amanda who was returning from a trip to Paris France, could unite with Pablo, and, after a day or so of getting to know each other, they could fly on to Los Angeles to begin Pablo's new life.  (Other blogs in this series are: "Man's Best Friend" of January 2013 and"The Booster center" of June 2013.)

So, on June 24, early in the morning Nora, Pablo, the students, and their families gathered to see them off at Jose Marti International Airport when the airline gave Betty and Nora an onerously worded release form to sign where the airline would take no responsibility for Pablo's safety.  Briefly conferring with the airport vet, a friend of Nora's, they found out there had been "mishaps" with some dogs shipped as baggage with Cuban travelers who were planning to return later to Cuba.  Perhaps it was a way to persecute Cuban travelers who might be trying to defect to the US by simply staying there and not returning to Cuba at all.  After all, why would a short term visitor to the US need to bring his or her dog along for the trip?  Sensing danger, the group of students and family members unanimously decided Pablo was too valuable to risk possible political shenanigans, and Nora kept Pablo in Cuba.

Poor Amanda, after 8 months of waiting, she's at Miami Airport where she never sees Betty and finally gets the word she has to go home without Pablo.  In addition to all the arranging, the wasted money was a blow.  I knew Nora would at once begin a plan to get Pablo here, but Amanda must have been beginning to wonder if we were all a bunch of incompetents.

It wasn't very long until Nora told us Pablo would travel to the US on August 2.  This time I knew there would be no disappointments, as she let me know Pablo would be accompanying the wife of Spain's Ambassador to Cuba and their daughter.  As the reader may know, diplomats travel much better than regular people.  Their tickets, their baggage, their clearances through Customs and Immigration are efficient, perfunctory, without waiting in lines, and deferential.  Thus, Pablo would arrive in the US as a VIP.

Davis offered to meet Pablo in Miami so Amanda wouldn't have to fly clear across the country twice to get him home, and Amanda happily agreed.  Davis had been in constant contact with several airlines as he made plans for The Booster Center—the new Cuban training facility.  He had to fly specially selected pups into Cuba for the Center, and now he was planning for Pablo's flight to the west coast.

Airlines are often difficult to deal with, and, with regard to dogs, they are especially idiosyncratic.  Some embargo moving live animals in the hottest months.  Midsummer in Havana is especially hot.  Some allow very small dogs in the passenger cabin, and they are all afraid of a mishap harming someone's loved companion.  All have health certificate requirements, and some in the US require these to be in English.  The vet in Havana made the original certificates out in Spanish.  To make matters worse. It's hard to talk with live people in authority in an airline.  But Davis had to know the rules to make travel plans.  A few days before Pablo's flight, Davis sent two Golden Retriever pups back to Cuba with Betty who graduated from Bergin University's summer program.  Davis' tolerance for abuse is higher than mine, and he eventually pinned down all the requirements for Betty's flights and for the ongoing flight of Pablo.  That required picking up Pablo at midday in Miami, and getting him to a vet in Ft. Lauderdale to redo his health certificate in English for his 7 am flight to California.

So the Ambassador's wife was at a ticket counter with Pablo and another dog traveling from Aniplant to Tampa when Davis spotted her about two hours sooner than he had expected (Being a VIP, she had skipped all the lines for Customs and Immigration.)  Davis took Pablo to the vet and then his hotel, and at 4 am he arrived at Delta's cargo office in Fort Lauderdale, where Pablo went to sleep for his  5 hour flight to LAX.

We were in sporadic phone contact with Amanda as she waited for Pablo's flight.  The plane had left Florida 50 minutes late, so we were all beginning to imagine problems, but other than landing about an hour late, it was a routine flight and Amanda and a robustly healthy and happy Pablo were reunited ten months after she fell in love with a sick little dog in a Cuban park.

Les Inglis