Picking Up Skye, Our Norwegian Elkhound Puppy at Alaska Air Cargo

Skye (short for Skylette) was 1 of 9 puppies in a litter born at the Wetmore Elkhounds ranch in Wetmore, Colorado on August 31, 2021. It took a lot of work, false starts and rescheduling to finally fly Skye from Denver, Colorado to Seattle, Washington on Alaska Air Cargo. Alaska Airlines was one of the first to again allow shipping of live animals since the pandemic. What a journey this has been for Skye.

Background:

Three months after Shadow had passed, missing our beloved pet, Diane and I decided we were ready for a second Norwegian Elkhound puppy. We searched the internet for Elkhound breeders, and found two with puppies old enough to sell, one in Tennessee and another in Colorado. We decided we wanted a female Elkhound again. The breeder in Tennessee only had one female left, but she had a damaged tail and the breeder told us that it would never curl like a normal Elkhound. So, we checked out the available pups at the Wetmore Elkhounds in Colorado. Turns out they had one female left from the litter of nine puppies, Devin, the son of the owner of Wetmore Elkhounds who was learning the business informed us that the blue-collar female (or teal) was shy compared to her male siblings. After looking at the two still photos that Devin Miller texted to us, we instantly fell in love with this puppy! We paid the $200 reservation fee for holding the blue-collar female puppy while we worked through the process on how to get the puppy to us. And this turned out to be a major challenge! Driving 1,500 miles to Wetmore, Colorado would take us three or four days, and the series of fall storms we were experiencing in the Pacific Northwest and the potential for snow in the mountain passes, along with the expected high traffic levels during the Thanksgiving Holiday and the rising cost of gas quickly dispelled the idea of driving to Colorado and back. Then we thought about flying one way and driving back, but finding an available rental car was next to impossible. The only option left was to have the puppy shipped by air. However, most airlines had paused shipping live animals since the pandemic. Then Devin texted us saying that Alaska Airlines just resumed shipping live animals. After several trips to two vets, Devin was successful in getting the required certificate and he booked a flight from Denver to Seattle. Yeah!