Zip-ties, Prozac, and Other Things I've Learned
post by Jill
Emmett's Move to Paris
Some of you reading this have met, or maybe even know very well, our unique little Emmett. How to describe him? How does one capture such a complex little creature in the words of the English language?
We got Emmett as a puppy, precisely 8 weeks from his birth, in October of 2022. I have to give considerable credit to my dear friend Laura, who also owns the barn I taught at and the horses I’ve loved for nearly two decades. I was doing chores every day and teaching a few times a week while going into my Master’s program at that time, and had said out loud in her presence, “I’m begging Andrew to let me get a dog now, but he keeps pointing out that I’m the one out all the time and he’s the one working from home…” Laura said pointedly and clearly, “You can just bring the dog here to the barn with you all the time. You should definitely get a dog.”
So that’s what I did: I gave Andrew no more excuses to say we should put off the thing that he definitely also wanted, and we started our research.
Now, I know we committed millennial treason by buying a puppy from a breeder. Don’t worry, we are wracked with the appropriate level of shame about this. Our reasoning included (but was not limited to): we knew this dog would one day move abroad with us, and most likely frequently travel, and we wanted to set up our puppy with the relevant skills and experiences, while minimizing the risk of pre-existing trauma; we also knew this dog would spend an enormous amount of time around horses, but also lots of time in a variety of urban areas, and we wanted to select the breed with intention and certainty. (By “select the breed with intention” I mean “get an Australian Shepherd, the only dog Andrew would ever consider.”) We dug through the Internet for suggestions as to how to vet the reputation of a breeder.
The name “Emmett” had already come to us. Neither of us can remember exactly when or why, but it felt right. And then we found an announcement of currently available miniature Australian Shepherd puppies at a breeder we’d looked at, a little south of us, with the most precious red tri male.
Brenda was an odd gal, but I would assume nothing less of a dog breeder who was a previous horsewoman. She wore blue eyeliner, but only on her bottom lids. Emmett was a tiny thing, and was perfectly behaved in his itty bitty crate for the car ride as we brought him home.
As he’s grown up, Emmett has proven to be consistent in several things. First, he does pretty much understand English (we’ll find out if he understands French, but I think he’ll pick it up quickly), and learns from a “pattern” being repeated exactly one time. He functions best off-leash, though he’s accepted the need for leashes to soothe other peoples’ emotional states sometimes. He’s what we would call a “skeptical eater,” where he does actually accept most people-food offered to him, but with some inspection first, and won’t just eat anything. (One time, we took him over to our friends’ house while their dog was away, and he didn’t even consider eating the other dog’s kibble left in the bowl.)
He was incredibly easy to crate-train, he’s only had 2 indoor accidents in his entire life, and does perfectly in settings like the barn and horse show venues. He’s resigned himself to tolerating house parties, eventually just curling up on the basement couch and watching with some judgement as we dance to “millennial club bangers” with our friend group of thirtysomethings a few times a year.
He does have anxiety. No, not in the buzzword-y, “hip” way that so many young people talk about themselves or their animals, I promise you. He’s seen several behaviorist veterinarians, one who even came to our home. He’s been prescribed Prozac for most of his life.
And his beauty is his ultimate curse.
Emmett hates being touched.
It’s true that a few times a day, usually first thing in the morning and as it gets close to dinnertime, Emmett will approach Andrew and I for some pets and snuggles. He may accept a little under-chin rub as a greeting when we get home after being out. If we’re away from home and around strangers, he pretty consistently seeks out body contact as a form of emotional soothing, though it’s not actually effective. Otherwise, Emmett doesn’t genuinely enjoy physical touch. On the contrary, it induces intense anxiety and discomfort, and he avoids it at all costs.
He has a number of “sensory issues,” really, which is the most accurate way to put it. He never got used to the feeling of a collar, and will obsessively scratch at it while it’s on. Our attempt at a Thunder Shirt to soothe his general baseline anxiety completely backfired. He despises being brushed, which isn’t that uncommon, but catching a mat in his fur can induce full-on panic, including snapping and biting. When he does invite pets from Andrew or I, there are only a few acceptable areas, and if we both touch him at the same time, his eyes go wide and he has to remove himself immediately.
He’s hard to read for the average stranger; he does like people as a concept, and will wiggle his tail-less butt and reach forward for a sniff, but he will always misinterpret a friendly hand offered for sniffing as an attempt to touch his head, and quickly shifts to a very alarming snarl/snap that is (rightfully) off-putting. He shrinks away from a stolen pat, every time. If he feels trapped or panicked, he will bite. He likes people, but hates pets. Consistently.
You cannot rely on time and frequency of exposure to eventually earn the right to pet Emmett. No human can follow or comprehend his internal set of rules about this; about who, when, or where natural human-dog petting behavior is acceptable to him. However, he does frequently offer his own signs of appreciation and relationship! They are abundant, while not always obvious. He “butt wiggles,” like any Aussie, and sometimes play-bows. He’ll playfully sneeze. He particularly likes to come and sit near his people, back to them, like a loyal guard that no one asked for. (Don’t misinterpret this as an opening to pet the back of his head, or trust will be broken.)
One time, we took him on a road trip to Sonoma, California to attend Leanna and Patrick’s wedding. It was a small, intimate event at the remote property her parents owned, with stunning, sweeping views, and perfect weather. Dogs were equally invited. The night before our friend group completed the trek up the mountain to the property, we gathered at a big Airbnb in town for a pre-pre-wedding party. Emmett did great, as he usually does at Airbnbs and parties, because everybody there knew they weren’t supposed to touch him.
Things took a turn, however, when he was attempting a reasonable bowel movement late in the evening, and we all discovered he was struggling to pass a long hair. (Probably one of mine.) Dogs don’t have hands to take care of this situation independently, so we did what any dog owner must do, and tried to help him.
At the sensation of a strand of hair being gently pulled from the vice-like grip of his sphincter, Emmett’s entire body levitated and twisted with the force of a Marlin attempting to thrash itself off a line. His screech could be heard for miles. In the morning, he emerged from his trusty crate with the most horrifying evidence of his nervous-system’s experience: every blood vessel in both of his eyes had burst. (I’m not joking. All of them.)
Now in a panic ourselves, Andrew and I spent most of the day of the rehearsal dinner calling and visiting every emergency vet in the area. When it came time for Emmett to finally be seen, the vet immediately deduced he would need to be sedated in order to be examined. What they—we, not so much—were surprised to find was that it actually took 4 entire doses of sedative for Emmett to go down just enough for the examination. He was still trying to bite them, naturally.
(He was fine in the end, we just had to wait it out while his eyeballs healed themselves, and Leanna and Patrick have some unfortunately unique wedding photos.)
[I've requested these photos, which I've seen but don't have at this moment, and will update this post if Leanna ever remembers to send them to me.]
I paint you this extensive picture, because I hope to capture the most important themes in Emmett’s move to Paris.
Leading up to our departure, more and more people were concernedly asking, “Is Emmett coming with you?” These were almost always people who were either actively watching Emmett do something weird and anxious, or had at some point witnessed Emmett being himself, which is near-constantly weird and anxious. Yes, Emmett was always going to come with us, without question. No, France does not require a quarantine in 2026 (thank you, modern veterinary medicine). And then, “Does he get to fly with you in the cabin?”
Emmett, though indeed a miniature of his breed, stands at about 14 inches tall at his shoulder, and weighs just over 26 pounds. Most airlines require pets to be well under 20 pounds to fly in the cabin, with Air France’s limit being 17. There are also rules around the dimensions of the carrier, and the relative height/length of the animal in the carrier. Emmett very much exceeds all of these limitations.
Unless we were prepared to spend upwards of $8,000 for one of us to fly one of those boutique dog airlines—and then be on a flight with other dogs—Emmett would be going in the hold.
The next part of the conversation usually transitioned to questions about what medications Emmett would get on the plane. I don’t blame anyone for widening their eyes or dropping their jaws at the answer, “Nothing more than his daily dose of Prozac.” Please see above: how much sedation it takes for Emmett to be seen by the vet for his bloody eyes. Please also understand that, on our winding journey to his current fluoxetine dose, we went through a number of different medication trials to find something that actually works for Emmett. Trazodone and alprazolam make him varying degrees of worse.
Nope, Emmett “raw-dogged” his flight from Seattle to Paris.
Here’s what we did do, to mentally and emotionally prepare our poor dog for an international move:
We bought a kennel directly from Air France several months in advance. Emmett had several crates on rotation in his daily life, and this one became one of those, so that it was as familiar as any of them before the big trip.
We’ve taken him on weekend trips by car ever since his very first vaccines were considered effective, so he’d long practiced going to new hotels and Airbnbs.
We brought him just about everywhere with us that dogs are allowed to go, from family parties to restaurants, despite this being an annoyance to most other people.
Just a few weeks before our move, he even walked on a ferry to and from San Juan Island with us; not his first ferry ride, but the first without a car. (He was perfect.)
Thanks to his crate training from day one, he’d had countless practice spending long stretches of time in the crate in various locations, and he’s never found the crate itself stressful.
We also selected a dog food brand in his puppyhood with widespread accessibility in mind, and our vet let us refill his prescription for 180 days in advance, so we have months to help transition him to whatever we can get over here.
Now, did all of this mean that we were emotionally prepared to let the flight attendant take Emmett away? Absolutely not.
We half-joked the whole time leading up to it, that the transatlantic flight that was likely to traumatize plenty of other dogs was going to hardly register to our weird little Emmett, because his theme is to find normal things intolerable and insane things to be no biggie. Our fingers were crossed, but we only half-believed it.
I put a piddle-pad liner in the bottom of the crate, under his usual and familiar bed. He got a familiar little blanket, and a favorite felt ball in there with him. We put the clip-on bowls on the kennel door, in case their policy allowed them to give him water, and I tied a little cover on so he could have his preferred privacy.
My stomach was roiling and my shoulders were to my ears as we checked all of our baggage, and eventually Emmett, at the Air France counter a full 3 hours before our flight’s scheduled departure. He was softly whining in the crate. The special TSA spot around the corner had us take him out to inspect the inside of the crate, and he just looked around the airport with bewilderment for the 2 minutes that process took. Then back in he went, they had us zip-tie the crate door shut, and the flight attendant wheeled his crate away on a cart.
He didn’t make a peep for at least as long as we were within earshot. I still burst into tears, obviously.
When we bought the tickets, Air France predicted the direct flight would be 10 hours and 50 minutes. The day we boarded, however, the captain announced on the loudspeaker that it was expected it would only take about 8.5 hours, which was a significant relief. Though Emmett went both pee and poop just outside the airport, it was about to be a pretty long stretch of time to hold it.
Our plane departed perfectly on time, and did indeed land an efficient 8 hours and 32 minutes after takeoff. The line for passport control was longer than we wanted it to be, but still not entirely torturous. (We were most annoyed that the fancy new automated biometrics system meant we didn’t get to actually flash those fancy visas that we’re so proud of in a real person’s face.) It took us a minute to find baggage claim, and then to find the specific oversized-baggage spot where you pick up dogs, but at last, Emmett’s crate was in our sight. It was both reasonable and a little funny how thoroughly the security guy double checked our pickup tag against the sticker on Emmett’s crate, as our deeply unsociable dog whined and wiggled his butt so hard the crate shook when he recognized us.
We were both certain that Emmett would have an accident in the crate out of excitement when he spotted us (piddles from over-excitement do happen at our house), but he didn’t. He also continued to tolerate his ongoing confinement as we gathered the rest of our 6 enormous suitcases, and then wheeled our load across the entirety of the airport to the car rentals. (Again, I am not joking. I looked it up, and the walk from our baggage claim carousel to the car rental pickup is legitimately .8 miles, and takes roughly 15 minutes. Between the two of us, we were pushing about 350 pounds of luggage plus a dog in his crate.)
We finally let him out in the half-empty parking lot by the rental car, 2 hours after we’d disembarked the plane. He accepted thorough greetings from us, sniffed around, and decided he wasn’t desperate enough to pee on the pavement, even in a more secluded corner. Realizing we were going to be late to meet our Airbnb host for check-in, we had to rush him into an unfamiliar car to drive into the city, but he was eager and willing, and probably just happy to be together again. He ate a meal of kibble out of my hand, and drank what was left of our flight waters.
Neither Andrew or I have ever driven in Paris, and the reason for that is because nobody should. After the fact, I suppose we both figure the energetic math still maths for this to have been our solution to lugging so many bags plus a dog across the city, but barely. Traffic was a bummer, and parking was a nightmare. All the same, Emmett panted in my lap, looking out the window with an equivalent level of stress as when we drive him to my parents’ house in Tacoma.
Despite just being in the crate for nearly 14 hours and still having not gone potty, Emmett hopped back into the crate willingly as we set him aside for free hands to carry our horrifying amount of luggage up 2 flights of narrow Parisian stairs. He sniffed around the new furnished apartment curiously, and lapped up a lot more water, as we prepared ourselves to take him for a walk to find a real park. We probably looked like a couple of animated corpses as we ventured out into the streets of Paris—I should mention that our plane took off at 1:30pm Seattle time, and landed in Paris at 7:00am local time—but Emmett trotted between us with a loose leash and a spring in his step.
I navigated us to a result for “dog park” on Google maps, less than 20 minutes from our temporary apartment. We immediately noted that half the dogs we spotted on the bustling streets along the way were off-leash. This is truly Emmett’s city.
Similarly, the norm at the park was clearly leashless, so Emmett got his first taste of the freedom he’s familiar with right away. As soon as his paws hit grass, he took care of his business, more efficiently than he ever has at home, and enjoyed a short jaunt through the paved trails, ears forward.
Our most major concern for his adjustment period was the high volume of sounds we’d be able to hear from inside our apartment. Our Tacoma house is on a busy street, and vehicle noises have never bothered him, but he often growls or outright barks if he hears a human voice outside or a delivery person right outside the door. To our complete shock, he has so far had zero issue with all the noise outside, even with every window open and the kids from the school across the street laughing and shrieking at their lunch hour.
Andrew and I struggled to keep ourselves awake that first night, long enough to provide him with a reasonable “bedtime potty,” but we lasted until about 8pm. We took him to what will be the regular “potty spot” on our street, which is clearly the neighborhood spot, and he once again went right away. He then let us sleep for a full eleven hours before he requested to go out this morning with a soft little whine.
Long story long, we approached this move with our Emmett with a lot of optimism, but a healthy dose of worry and skepticism underneath. Our initial experience has been incredibly encouraging, and validating of the assumptions we were a little nervous about making.
Emmett’s a weird guy, no doubt about it. He won’t eat another dog’s kibble even if they’re not around, and he won’t drink water out of a bowl that isn’t explicitly his; he can’t really play with other dogs, and won’t let people he’s known his whole life give him a pat on the head. But he can catch a flight that takes him 5,000 miles across the world, move to one of the busiest cities in Europe, and not even notice he’d just done something a lot of humans would be too afraid to do.
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