Suzanne promised to keep me updated with how Genghis was doing and after depositing him and a large bag of food I said my goodbyes and set off home.
As my husband and I were climbing the mountain road on the way to the airport we saw a line of traffic coming slowly towards us. The cars were slowing down for something and then overtaking it and driving on. As we approached we saw that there was a dog trotting downhill in our direction. It was a young bitch who looked strikingly like Genghis and she had obviously recently had puppies. She had a rope tied around her neck which trailed in a long train behind her as if she had broken free and escaped from somewhere. As we came towards her she tried to cross the road to go down a side turning but had to negotiate the line of cars which were passing her. We stopped to let her by and she trotted on down the side road. As I looked down the turning to try to see where she was headed, I saw a car a short way ahead of the dog appear to stop and I hoped that whoever was in the car would collect her up as she was in a very precarious location. Of course I wanted to do something about her but we were already very late for our flight and stopping would have meant that we would have missed it altogether, so I had no option but to carry on and hope against hope that I was right about the car I had seen and that the dog would be OK.
Once back in the UK it wasn't long before I received an email from Suzanne with the details of Genghis’ flight. This was it, it was real, we had a date to look forward to. Genghis would be leaving the land of his birth for good at 5:00 a.m. and flying with Turkish Airlines to Istanbul where he would spend a few hours before carrying on to Heathrow. Suzanne said he would be let out of his crate in Istanbul and have a chance to stretch his legs and do any business which was reassuring as it was going to be a very long journey for him and he would have to spend a lot of time shut up in his crate. Suzanne had bought the biggest size crate available and it even had a water container inside which I hoped would help Genghis keep his thirst at bay. The crate was expensive, however its price paled into insignificance when compared to the air fare and all the veterinary, import and handling fees. I was particularly unhappy about having to pay £300 to the handling company at Heathrow just to unload Genghis from the plane, especially as he would still be left in his crate so they didn't even have to deal with him in person they were just dealing with a box! There was no other option as the handling company had the monopoly of unloading animals or “live cargo” as Genghis was deemed. In addition we were told that if Genghis’ flight was delayed and he arrived after a certain time in the evening there would be an additional handling charge! We paid all the monies due and I made sure that I had the day off work so we could set off for the airport as soon as we received the email from the handling company telling us what time we could collect Genghis from the animal quarantine section. He was due to arrive on a Sunday afternoon so we thought that the traffic on the M25 wouldn't be too bad, which was a plus. As Genghis’ big day was fast approaching we set about making sure we were fully prepared for our new arrival.