The transport that wasn't

I hesitated to post this as I don't mean to say anything bad about people who obviously get involved in transporting because they love dogs. But if this is going to give a complete picture of my transporting endeavors, it needs to include both the good and the bad.

At any rate, I had set up a transport for today. It was one for two 1-year-old Aussies, one male, one female, both from a hoarding situation. It was one I couldn't resist.

So, all was well. I took off at 11:45am this morning to head out to Rochester to the arranged meeting point.

At around 12:10pm I received a phone call. The folks I was meeting were running 20 minutes behind. No biggie. That meant I had time to stop and grab something to eat.

"Oh and do you have a crate?"

No. I have no room in my car for an Aussie-sized crate, much less two Aussie-sized crates.

"Are you traveling with someone?"

I rarely do. David has come on exactly three transports with me and one of those was the time we got Dahlia. So 30 transports I've done all on my own. As anyone who has read my adventures in transporting knows, I've handled them all fine. Some dogs I was happy to let go, but for the most part all went well. No trouble on my watch. I've kept them all calm, even the dogs people thought were a bit out of control.

Well, these folks warned me of DIRE THINGS. The female is crazy out of control and eating their car. The male constantly humps the female. They don't know if I can handle it on my own. I assure them that I'll be just fine. We hang up, business as usual.

A half hour later, they call again. They have decided I cannot handle it and have pulled me off the transport. *blinks* What? They are going to go all the way to Syracuse. Mind you, I'm almost to Rochester at this point. I assure them, again, that I'm experienced with this sort of thing and I can handle it. Nope. No go. They've already arranged it with the next person down the line. There's just "no way" I could do it...blah blah blah. There's no budging them. They thank me for my attempt, as if this is my first time doing this, and hang up. Lovely. I wasted two hours of my life for nothing because of those folks.

Now mind you, there had been no updates about the dogs being out of control. There usually is if there's a problem. The transport coordinators are very good about this.

So I head back.

Meanwhile, the rest of the story comes out.

The person I was to meet in Syracuse e-mails me. She says these folks were extremely rude to her, demanding they meet somewhere else than where we had set up the meeting point. And they were freaking out. The woman was shouting into the phone, spazzing out over the male dog humping. The man is screaming in the background about the dog eating their seatbelt and her leash and OMG WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO.

And so why are the dogs out of control again? Hmmm...

The person I was to meet is a bit taken aback (especially as she and I have met on transport several times!) but goes to meet them anyway.

She e-mailed me later that day with some extra information, including the fact that the folks were 20 minutes early for the meeting spot and did not even get the dogs out of the car. Some people really should not be transporting if this is how they react to normal dog behavior. I'm really peeved off that I got pulled off the transport by these people. It's not like they discussed it with the coordinator (who, by the way, I have done several transports for). They just simply made a decision and refused to meet me. I don't know if they were new to transporting or thought I was, but either way it was a waste of time and money and just completely aggravating.