Starlight Pet Talk
Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk! I'm Amy Castro, your guide in the world of pet parenting. Join us for expert pet care advice, heartwarming pet adoption stories, and a mission-driven commitment to helping pets and their families live their best lives.
As a respected voice in the pet industry, Pet Age Magazine columnist, and president of Starlight Outreach and Rescue, I've fostered over 4000 critters and record the podcast from our 7-acre rescue ranch.
With expert guests and pet parents like you, we'll explore everything from pet nutrition and diet to animal behavior, dog training, cat care essentials, and pet safety. Expect laughs, learning, and camaraderie in every episode.
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Starlight Pet Talk
Rescue Road Trip: Our 1672 Mile Epic Journey to Find Bonnie's Forever Home
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What happens when a hurricane derails your plans, your car breaks down, and you end up in a sketchy hotel? Join us on an epic 1,672-mile journey from Texas to New York, where my best friend Bev and I, Amy Castro, faced these challenges and more—all in the name of finding the perfect forever home for Bonnie, a lovable rescue dog.
Our adventure was filled with unexpected detours, hilarious mishaps, and heartwarming moments as we stayed committed to Bonnie’s welfare every step of the way. From flat tires in New Jersey to navigating pet-friendly hotels with questionable conditions, we tackled it all with determination and a bit of humor. Alongside Dr. Linda Atkins of Valley Cottage Animal Hospital, we ensured that Bonnie’s new home was just right, despite the many obstacles we encountered.
Ever wonder what it takes to secure a loving home for a rescue animal? We’ll dive into the creative strategies we used to expand Bonnie’s adoption reach, including alternate addresses and rigorous vetting of potential adopters. Plus, hear how we managed Bonnie’s anxiety during her first-ever road trip and why our unexpected stop in Memphis during Elvis Week turned into an unforgettable experience.
From spontaneous visits to historical sites like Valley Forge and Gettysburg to the emotional and logistical challenges of saying goodbye to Bonnie, this episode is packed with stories that highlight the dedication and flexibility required in rescue work. Whether you’re a pet lover, a road trip enthusiast, or just in for a rollercoaster of emotions, laughter, and invaluable lessons in animal rescue and adoption, this episode has something for everyone.
Shoutouts in the episode:
Valley Cottage Animal Hospital and Dr. Linda Atkins
Trip Advisor
Chrysler and the Chrysler Pacifica
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Hey there, pet lovers. Welcome back to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, amy Castro, and today we're doing something very different but very special for you. So imagine this a 1,672-mile road trip, a rescue dog named Bonnie and a mission to find her the perfect, forever home all the way from Texas to New York. Sounds like a wild ride, right? Well, it certainly was. And the best part, I wasn't alone. I had my amazing best friend, bev by my side, who, by the way, flew all the way from Boston to Texas just to join me on this little road trip adventure. But, as with anything that I'm involved in, it was not all smooth sailing From a hurricane messing with Bev's flight plans to car trouble multiple times along the way, a super sketchy hotel in Virginia and some historical detours. We've got stories for days. And let's not forget the most important part making sure Bonnie's new home was just right. And we did that with a little help from our friend Dr Linda Atkins of the Valley Cottage Animal Hospital.
Amy Castro:So whether you're just curious about how pet adoption websites can connect a dog from Texas with a family in New York, or you just love a good road trip story, this episode is packed with all the twists, turns and tail wags you could want. So buckle up and join us for this unforgettable journey with Bonnie, bev and me. Let's get started. You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk, and I'm your host, amy Castro.
Amy Castro:And today we're talking about road tripping with our friend Bonnie, a rescue adventure across 1,672 miles across this beautiful United States of ours. And with me on this journey, as I mentioned in the teaser for this episode, was my best friend Bev. Say hi Bev, hi Bev. And she's been on the show before. You all have met Bev before. So I couldn't think about doing a road trip like this, because I was basically contemplating let's just say I was contemplating bad thoughts of trying to do this trip by myself. But Bev decided she would hop on a plane, fly all the way to Houston from Boston and then turn around, get back in the car and head right back to where she came from the very next day, and so that's kind of how our road trip began. First of all, I have to say that the pre-planning process of this whole trip was pretty interesting. It was all very planned out but at the same time very last minute I think, bev you got your ticket, what like two days before we were supposed to be taking off.
Bev Brooks:I think, bev, you got your ticket what like two days before we were supposed to be taking off. Well, I think we had gotten the plane ticket earlier than that. And then here comes Hurricane Beryl, oh yeah. And I start looking and I'm like you know, you know how, like airports, they shut down, they slow down and it kind of has a domino effect, like a storm in Colorado could affect a flight to Chicago or whatever. So I started thinking about it and yes, two days before the trip, I'm like can we lay over somewhere other than Atlanta? And there's just no way to get into the smaller of the two.
Amy Castro:Houston airports. So we booked a whole nother flight, yeah, so already I'm agitated because I missed this whole chain of text messages that apparently I was not involved in. And so the only text message I saw from Bev is can't we take a more westerly route on my flight? And I'm thinking have you lost your freaking mind? It is like two days before I don't, why do you need to go west? It made like I just was losing my mind and then I went back and scrolled back and it's like oh yeah, that makes sense, because basically our drive well her flight was going against Beryl and then our drive was kind of going in the direction of Beryl. But luckily in the end it all worked out well because we didn't hit any bad weather the whole trip, which was kind of nice?
Bev Brooks:We really didn't.
Amy Castro:It was beautiful the whole time it was great, yeah, and the only thing that got slightly messed up is I had the pickup of the rental car because I was a little concerned about my car, even though it's not that old, but I was concerned about its ability to make that trip, especially because periodically the air conditioner likes to kick off and nobody needs that in the middle of summer.
Amy Castro:So we decided to rent a car and that way if we had any problems along the way it would be somebody else's problem. Little did I know it would also be our problem, but we'll get to that shortly. But anyway, I had it all really planned out that Bev was going to be flying into Hobby Airport in Houston. I was going to pick up the rental car, zip her back over to the rental car place, we would sign out the car, get her on as a driver, because I did not want to do all the driving and then, when we changed the flights, didn't even think about the fact that the car was going to be at one airport and Bev was going to be at another airport.
Bev Brooks:Oh, I didn't think about that either until you said it just now.
Amy Castro:Yeah, oh my God, it was not a big deal, but I had to go pick up the car at Hobby Airport and then drive to Bush Airport to pick up Bev. But it all worked out and we got home. So this was all on. What was that Thursday night, right? So we're going to give you kind of a timeline of this trip and how it played out, because it took longer than it should have, but we also took our time to a certain degree. So, anyway, we get home, we get up. The next morning Did not get off to an early start, I'm not even sure why.
Bev Brooks:I don't think go ahead. It was intentional because we weren't sure. We weren't sure how we were going to do, I wasn't sure how you were going to do, and we certainly didn't know how Bonnie was going to do. So we just taken our time and see how far we would get that particular day, and no reason to rush.
Amy Castro:That's true.
Amy Castro:Yeah, I mean we had an agenda from the standpoint of what day we needed to be in New York, but we had more than enough time in between when Bev got in and actually the arrival that we were supposed to be handing her off to not Bev not handing Bev off to the adopter, but handing Bonnie off to the adopter along the way, but anyway.
Amy Castro:So I think we got on the road about 9.30 and we will not give you an exact moment by moment timeline, but this is sort of pivotal because we got on the road, we get the dog in the car and then we have to go find an Avis location to add Bev to the car, because nobody wanted to mess around with that. At eight o'clock at night the night before transaction at the Avis office in Pearland Thank you very much. And off we went with a final destination in mind but no idea where we were going to stop. Along the way I dragged Bev into a risky trip of not planning one of the stops along the way. I had no hotel reservations, nothing planned along the way, just a pseudo route. But, like Bev said, it was all about seeing how long we lasted in the car and stopping at what seemed like a logical point.
Bev Brooks:It just means we weren't restricted in where we can go and it was loosey-goosey, we could spend all the time. It's not like we had to catch a flight, you know, we could just make the day as long or as short as we wanted to. It was fine. It was totally fine.
Amy Castro:And, as mentioned, we didn't really know how Bonnie was going to do. The longest ride I've ever had with her in the car has probably been about an hour an hour and 10 minutes, not 24 hours. So turns out she was very good in the car, thank goodness, along the way. But some of you may be wondering why is it that we went through this trouble? Because several people asked us if we were crazy about taking this dog on this road trip. Why, why New York? Why didn't we find anybody around here, which is Houston? And then also, why were we jumping in the car ourselves? Because there are ways that you can transport a dog, like sticking them in a crate on a plane, sticking them on a truck with a transport to get them delivered to the East Coast. But there was a method to the madness, wouldn't you say Bev.
Bev Brooks:I would say that she's precious cargo and you've poured a year of your life, blood, sweat and tears into her. It's precious cargo. You wouldn't just hand it off. Luggage gets lost. You want to make sure it gets there.
Amy Castro:Yeah, yeah, we definitely wanted to make sure she got there, felt a very vested interest in her future, because this, to be perfectly honest, this adoption was kind of her last chance um other than living with me forever or you know, or worse, because, um, bonnie one one of her biggest drawbacks, even though to me she's kind of a picture perfect dog with with one very major flaw, and that is she's a cat killer.
Bev Brooks:Let's just put it that way. Oh, she said it.
Amy Castro:She has. I know I did say it. Well, first of all we got her from somebody as a puppy, as an older puppy, and had her for a while. I thought we would get an adopter sooner. Cute bull terrier, unusual looking, good personality. And I won't get into all the back and forth about why it took us so long to get her out to that first adopter, but she was out to her first adopter for a couple of months and then she got out the front door and killed a kitty cat and so Bonnie got returned. So yeah, and some dogs are like that, you know, some dogs have a very strong prey drive and I don't know that it would have mattered if it was a cat or a bunny or a mouse or a possum or whatever it would be. But she definitely liked to go after things, although we didn't flat out say in her description that she was a cat killer, because that just sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it, bev?
Bev Brooks:I still don't know why an adopter more locally to where you are could not be found. Like, is it that difficult to look past that? Like, if you live alone and don't have a cat, what's the problem? Is it the neighbor has a cat and you're concerned about her getting out? I mean, it was just very difficult to understand why she was completely unadoptable. For what was it a year that you had her?
Amy Castro:Yeah, it was over a year. Over a year we got her and she was probably, let's say she was eight months, seven, eight months, and she's two and a half now.
Amy Castro:So we had her a long time in our program and part of that time she was at a professional trainers and so we lost time in there with working with just getting her basic training and things taken care of, and she spent a lot of time boarding there as well, because we didn't have any place to put her at the time. So we did, I think she lost a little bit of time on the adoption market. Yeah, I think the whole local adoption thing. Well, first, like I said, first of all, we did not say that she was a cat killer, but we did make it super duper clear in our advertisement of her that you know that, no cats. And we got initially people that either had a cat or whatever the case may be, and it's like no, when I say no cats, I don't mean eh, it's, you know, she, she doesn't prefer to share space with cats. It's like she's going to, she's going to harm the cat and so that might be part of it.
Amy Castro:But yeah, I, I think we ran into a lot of people at various adoption events who didn't have cats and yet still we didn't find any adopters. So I'm not really sure what that was all about. I mean, you had a good theory at one point. You said to me something like well, maybe people would read that no cats thing and then read into well, if she can't be around cats, can she be around kids? Can she be around this, can she be around that? And maybe that was part of it too. But yeah, the bottom line was, after, after a certain amount of time, I just got to a desperation point of how long can this dog live in a kennel at the vet? Or I had her at my house for a long time, but trying to juggle my cats and her, yeah, that was crazy Closing doors and opening doors and where's, where's this cat, where's that?
Bev Brooks:No, you can't live that way. It was terrible, yeah.
Amy Castro:Yeah, it went on for a couple of months and actually she did get another cat. While she was here she got one of our barn cats. Unfortunately Not actually, I'll be, if I have to be really honest. Not only did she get one, but she got two.
Amy Castro:She didn't kill the second one, but she definitely caused enough damage to the first one that it did pass away from its injuries and so you know, I was actually, to be perfectly honest, contemplating whether this dog needed to be adopted at all, and it really brought up to me a lot of questions in rescue about how far do we let certain behaviors go before you say that dog's not safe. And I think with Bonnie, because she was good around dogs, good around kids I mean my four pound Chihuahua she never you know never had any problem with her. It was just prey drive and prey drives not an unnatural thing for dogs, a lot of dogs have that, and so I I kind of felt like it was something that, with the right adopter, could be managed. You know, maybe, maybe I'm wrong, you know, but uh.
Bev Brooks:I think you even said too if she's on the leash, it was not an issue.
Amy Castro:Yeah, yeah, it's really just when she's not in control of a person. Um, because she actually listened quite well, she didn't. I mean, I would get out of my car on a regular basis with cats all over there because we've got lots of barn cats and it's not like she pulled or barked or anything like that. But I know if I'd clicked that leash off she'd have been off like a rocket after those cats. So anyway, that's a whole nother. We probably need to do a whole nother story episode about.
Amy Castro:You know, at what point do you decide an animal's not appropriate for adoption? But we made the command decision that Bonnie deserved at least one other chance, and so and this is kind of an interesting thing that people may not realize when you go out on websites like Adopt-A-Pet and Pet Finder, I mean you can search the entire country for pets, but generally what people do is they put in their zip code and they search a certain radius from themselves. And so I thought to myself okay, how can I expand the reach of people seeing this dog, you know, especially to parts of the country that maybe have fewer animals up for adoption? I think that's another challenge is in Houston there's so many dogs available, whereas other parts of the country people are on waiting lists to get a dog. That's very true, yeah, parts of the country people are on waiting lists to get a dog. That's very true, yeah.
Amy Castro:So anyway, I decided I didn't even ask my brother about this, but I put his address in as a secondary transport location for Starlight Outreach and Rescue, and it's not like it showed that to the public or anything, but it made her picture and her information viewable by people in that area and, interestingly enough, the person who Bonnie ended up getting adopted to and I'm not going to name the town or name the person's name, but was literally within a few minutes, you know, to a half an hour from, let's say, from my brother's house, so really, really close. And that's what opened up the possibility of taking Bonnie to New York, which I still look back and say that was just nuts. I can't believe we did that.
Bev Brooks:I don't know. I sometimes I think that too, but all in all it really wasn't that unreasonable. People do this all the time.
Amy Castro:Yeah yeah. And we didn't go just like willy-nilly, like I talked to some crazy guy on the phone and then decided to drive a dog to him. You know, there was obviously our normal adoption vetting process, background check that we do on potential adopters, a Facebook and other social media stalking that we usually do. And then I kind of figured, okay, I don't want to get all the way up there and find that I see something in this person's home, their yard where they live, their family members. That is not going to work. And so I enlisted the help of my friend Linda Atkins, who is Dr Linda Atkins at the Valley Cottage.
Amy Castro:Yes, she is so at the Valley Cottage Animal Hospital in Valley Cottage, new York, and it just so happens that I used to work there as a kid, through high school and college, and Bev worked there too, right?
Bev Brooks:Yeah, I did, I'm not going to name years, but I did it through high school and college. I want to say high school for me too. I honestly I don't remember when that was, when it was over in the shopping plaza, before they had the freestanding hospital that they have now.
Amy Castro:Yeah, now they've got their big old building and a second building and everything else anyway. So I thought, okay, who can I find that's back in New York that would be willing to drive and go and check this person out? So thank goodness Linda volunteered. She went over there with one of her veterinary technicians and put this guy through the ringer. I sent her like three pages of interview questions. Oh my God, well, she asked me for them. I'm like I don't know, I'm not sure what to ask. Oh wow, well, we don't normally do home visits, you know, we kind of visit with the person, but as far as, like checking out the person's fence, checking out where the dog's going to sleep, right, I thought one of the things was super interesting is that there are some rescues that will go to like Google Images or Google Maps and look at your property and not only looking for whether you actually do have a fence or not, but looking for things like is there a ring around a tree that shows that a dog?
Bev Brooks:has been tied.
Amy Castro:Yeah, has tied and worn a path into the ground kind of thing, or evidence of dog houses that might indicate, you know, that the dog doesn't spend all its time indoors. Anyway, it was an interesting education for me to work up these questions. So I sent her all these questions. She went over, I crossed my fingers and, sure enough, she came back and said the guy's great, his kid's great, I think it's going to be great.
Bev Brooks:And so.
Amy Castro:So then we started really finalizing plans at that point.
Bev Brooks:And even if, even if it didn't work out with the adopter, you still had a network of people myself Linda included that could. We could figure it out and get her back back to where you are at your rescue ranch and start again, or try another one there was still a safety net for her Right.
Amy Castro:Yeah, and that's something that I think we pride ourselves on is that you know and I tell adopters this all the time is that we will always take an animal back, you know, if it doesn't work, cause you don't know what's going to happen.
Bev Brooks:Right, do other, do other rescues, do that too. Take animals back.
Amy Castro:A lot of them do, I'm sure not all of them do. You know, I think the trickiest part, especially for bigger rescues, you know we're a relatively small rescue. We do 300 and something animals a year and there are rescues that do 600, 700 a month kind of thing.
Bev Brooks:Oh my Lord.
Amy Castro:My guess would be, if you do that level of volume, that you probably can't make that kind of guarantee. But I would guess they probably try, and one would hope that if you and this is for those who adopt if something doesn't work out, even if it's well down the road after you adopted your pet, don't assume that the rescue either won't take the animal back or won't at least help you rehome the animal you know. So it's at least worth reaching out to them before you put the animal on Craigslist or Facebook or, you know, let some rando adopt the animal, because the rescues have resources to do things like background checks and home visits and whatnot.
Amy Castro:So at least ask them if they're willing to help you out, so anyway. So that was. That was kind of all of the pre-trip. This is what went into it before I realized wow, this is, we're really going to do this. This is just like I said, this is just crazy. So anyway, um Bev, how did I sucker you into coming with me?
Bev Brooks:You know, in hindsight I offered cause you were kind of you were kind of floundering on the phone and like what are we going to do? And maybe not floundering, but uh, and it just kind of it was the natural progression of things. Like why don't I just fly down there and drive with you? I think cause you're mostly concerned about you driving all that time by yourself and rental car, your car, whatever. So it's always better with a wingman. Turns out you're the best wingman ever because you can operate cell phones and maps and compute the GPS in the car. And grandma, here is just like, just what button do I push? Just tell me what button to push, whatever. Now you're an awesome wingman.
Amy Castro:Thank you, thank you. Yeah, the Air Force taught me to be a navigator.
Bev Brooks:No, not really, but no, it was just a natural progression, like why not make a trip out of it? You know we'll have fun. And then at that point it became very selfish on my part. I'm like, yeah, we're going on a road trip, we're going to knock some, check off some boxes of states that I hadn't been to yet. When we drove through Arkansas, I'm like I'm in Arkansas, I'm in Arkansas, I'm in Arkansas. I haven't been in Arkansas before.
Amy Castro:I didn't feel such enthusiasm about that, but that's okay.
Bev Brooks:Check those boxes.
Amy Castro:Check those boxes. So, yeah, it was like a road trip with Amy Hell, yeah, yeah, all right, so let's talk about Arkansas, shall we? There's nothing there, yeah Well, yeah, it's definitely the route that we were taking. There was not a whole lot going on between Houston and Arkansas. But, like I said, the weather was great, and so this is our strategy when Bev and I road trip, which we do fairly frequently, like when we went to England and Scotland and Ireland now there, we were at least smart and we kind of picked out major like London.
Amy Castro:You're not going to just wing it. You probably could have In my old age. I probably would wing it now if I went back again, but I didn't feel comfortable winging it and not having some place in a major city. So we had major cities book like Edinburgh, London and Dublin. But other than that, anything we did in between. Our strategy is thus First you got to set the hotel on fire.
Amy Castro:No, I'm just kidding, Actually, I'm not kidding. Yeah, that might have happened at one point. It wasn't an actual fire, but we'll tell that story another time. But anyway, first you've got to, uh, you get up, you have your breakfast, you hit the road early, Cause we're kind of on the same sleeping, wake up schedule which works out well. It's never good to road trip with somebody that wants to sleep till 10. If you're up at 645, it just would drive me, drive me nuts.
Amy Castro:So we'd hit the road and we drive, drive. We'd stop for lunch or not, or just picnic or whatever, and then, somewhere between 12 and two, get on TripAdvisor, my favorite website, and start looking for pet-friendly hotels. Well, obviously, when we were in England we didn't have to look for pet-friendly hotels, but that actually added another caveat, and I know you wanted to talk about that. But basically look for hotels that are within whatever X amount of distance. So you kind of gauge the pet how's she doing in the car, gauge the driver, gauge the passenger and say okay, it's 2 o'clock. How much further do we want to go before we stop? And then I start scouting out on TripAdvisor hotels. So our first hotel was the beautiful Holiday Inn outside Little Rock Airport, and it was fine. There wasn't a whole lot going on around it, though, so did we ever have dinner that night? Whatever happened with dinner? We weren't looking for dinner and we were not successful.
Bev Brooks:We drove all around and ended up ordering from the restaurant in the hotel.
Amy Castro:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we were going to do in the first place and it's just like what are the odds? This could be good, but it actually. The food was pretty good.
Bev Brooks:It wasn't bad. The restaurant we were going to go to was actually in the freaking airport, like we're not going into the airport to the restaurant. So, yeah, we drove around a little bit and that's how we ended up back at the hotel, yep.
Amy Castro:Yeah, I can't blame TripAdvisor for that. I should have looked a little more closely, because it's like oh look, there's a restaurant really close by here and it's like in the terminal, yeah, we're not doing that. So, yeah, we drove around some neighborhoods back in there behind the airport and then ended up right back where we started from, in the hotel. So let's talk about drugs, shall we? I forgot to mention the drugs.
Amy Castro:So before I left, I checked in with our vet as to what might be the needed things to take with Bonnie on the trip, and she sent us with a bottle of medication in case she was stressed out during the trip. And my assumption is prevention, not reaction, and so just take the drugs before you even have a problem, right? It seemed like a great idea. It seemed like a great strategy.
Bev Brooks:She thought it was a great strategy too. She's like, yeah, it's in a pill pocket, I'm in, I'm in she ate it and so little did.
Amy Castro:I know that Bonnie was very sensitive to that medication, although we, like I, didn't overdose her. I gave her exactly what she was supposed to get, based on her weight and size. She looked like a drunk monkey the entire trip, with her little droopy, bloodshot looking eyes droopy, bloodshot looking eyes. And although she was upright I mean she, she was on her feet, but we've got some pictures of her If you go back and look at our Facebook page and she looks pretty stoned. But but we were sober.
Bev Brooks:So that's all that matters, right? Yeah, yeah, we were, we were good.
Amy Castro:And she was very calm.
Bev Brooks:We didn't have gabapentin or whatever you want to call it.
Amy Castro:No, it wasn't gabapentin, it's. We used to call it ACE, but it stands for ACE blada, blada, boom, boom. I'll have to Google it. But anyway it's a common thing that people give for fireworks and car trips and things like that. So anyway, it was a little bit too much for Bonnie the first day, so we adjusted her dosage as we went along from one pill I think day two was half a pill, and then I cut it back to a quarter a pill, which wasn't quite enough because she definitely got panty and a little more anxious. But that could also be because the poor dog I mean from breakfast till dinnertime, was in the car, other than we did stop for significant frequent potty breaks. But yeah, we, it was that balance of trying to make progress and also not get the dog sour from being in the car. So much Right.
Bev Brooks:She, she never really. I mean, she was fine, but she was never like sleeping in the back seat. She was like what's going on, what's going on, what's going on? She was like a, like a kid, afraid of missing something. She never really quite conked out. Once in a while she would curl up behind one of our seats, but she never really, you know, took a nap. Let's put it that way. So she was constantly balancing and constantly looking all the whole time.
Amy Castro:Yeah, she has a busy body Like you could even mention the way she was she looking out the car windows and looking at people in their cars, like making eye contact she was. It was very strange.
Bev Brooks:It was kind of creepy, yeah, she was like what are you doing, what are you doing, hey, what are you doing, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you eating?
Amy Castro:Yeah, what are you eating? What's that? Yeah, so, but overall she was. She was a great little, great little traveler.
Bev Brooks:She was unbelievable. Yeah, I was a tad concerned that she didn. It was a big adjustment.
Amy Castro:Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it was stressful for her and we brought lots of. She had plenty of treats and toys and things like that, so kept her giving her something to do along the way. Okay, so we stopped in Little Rock for an overnight at the Holiday Inn and then we took off. At what point did we realize we were going to be like three days early?
Bev Brooks:It might've been somewhere in Graceland, I don't know.
Amy Castro:Yeah, yeah, so, okay. So the part of the strategy was not only you know, you know, not just sometimes waiting until the afternoon, but kind of saying, all right, where are we now? Where are we heading? What might there be Like? Is there anything we could stop and take pictures of Bonnie in front of you know, like the world's largest ball of twine or something?
Bev Brooks:I don't know where that is.
Amy Castro:It's somewhere, but it wasn't on our route that I could find anyway. So we scouted out that Graceland would have been a good stopping point, not for an overnight, but just like a swing off the road kind of thing. But then I looked up and saw that it was Elvis week in Memphis. Thinking it's going to be some big brouhaha, yeah Right. So we we moseyed on to Memphis and we figured we were going to go take Bonnie to get her picture with Elvis or with at least an Elvis impersonator. And how did that pan out for us?
Bev Brooks:It was very scarce, very slim pickings. We did see that one guy outside of Graceland. He had the big old mutton chop sideburns Like he was an Elvis wannabe. But that was as close as we got. There was like nothing to be found. There was no, there was no hoopla. Maybe at nighttime there would have been. But you know, you know, you and I are both in bed by 830. You know.
Amy Castro:All right, eight o'clock. Don't tell people that no, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say we did see that one Elvis-y looking guy, but he was on the wrong side of the road and then the light turned green so we had to leave.
Bev Brooks:And I was getting barked at the light's green Go.
Amy Castro:Yeah, exactly the sad part was is I was expecting that. You know we were going to pull down that Elvis Boulevard or whatever it is and be able to at least see Graceland from the street, Like kind of like you see the White House from the street, let's say, and it was all buildings in front of it. I'm assuming those are museum-y kind of things with memorabilia and Elvis's cars and all that stuff, but we didn't get pictures of diddly shit on that, Nothing.
Bev Brooks:Nothing In Memphis, all that stuff, but we didn't get pictures of diddly shit on that.
Amy Castro:nothing in memphis you couldn't even see this side of like, I'm not even sure graceland was there. Yeah well, and we, we, even we even went around behind like what would have been behind the house, behind the property, to see if we could see anything in some very nice little neighborhood that was back there. But it was a little creepy but yeah, what do you mean?
Bev Brooks:it was creepy, it was creepy, it was. It was like Stepford Wife creepy. Everything was perfect. There was no basketball court, there was nothing.
Amy Castro:So, in other words, the neighborhood was so nice, bev didn't like it, yeah it was creepy. Because she lives in a trashy, terrible neighborhood.
Bev Brooks:Anyway, is this really what?
Amy Castro:people want to hear yeah, limited Elvis sightings, no photos with Elvis. Bonnie was very disappointed and I don't know what possessed us. I think I had this sense of urgency that I totally screwed up the timeline. People, I'll tell you more about that in a minute. But I had this sense of urgency that, oh, this is not how far I was hoping we were going to get the first day, so let's just plow through. And I don't even know how many hours it was, but we went from Little Rock to what was the name of that town in Virginia Wytheville, wytheville.
Bev Brooks:Wytheville, virginia, which was very sketchy, according to my notes. We were in the park.
Amy Castro:Let's not say Wytheville was sketchy, because I didn't see all of Wytheville, but where we, where we ended up was, was sketchy, yeah, and by then we'd been in the car.
Bev Brooks:That's a good way of putting it. Yes, yeah.
Amy Castro:It was probably at least nine hours right that we went the second day. I had.
Bev Brooks:I had eight hours and 42 minutes. It was a long day and I remember it was like around three o'clock. How are we feeling? We're checking in with each other and you're like, let's go, let's press on through. I'm like all right If she's good. I'm good Because you were the biggest concern.
Amy Castro:Why am I a concern? What's wrong with?
Bev Brooks:me.
Amy Castro:Because you kept saying I don't know how I'm going to be. I don't know how I'm going to be. Yeah, I want to kick my legs around. I start laughing and just acting a little hysterical and so I need to be removed from the vehicle, kind of like the other day when I was flying back from Boston and we had to sit. Because, by the way people, this whole road trip didn't just end in New York, I still had to take Bev home, so we ended up back on Cape Cod.
Amy Castro:I stayed a couple of days to recoup and hang out and then, flying back out of Boston, I got to sit on the tarmac and breathe jet fuel fumes and whatever God knows else that I breathe, not only there, but then when I got back to Houston. So, yeah, I was very squirrely. I had thoughts of jumping up, taking off my clothes, running up the aisle and throwing myself out the plane door, because that's what happens when I fly. And as I'm sitting there contemplating these thoughts, I realized my doctor gave me a prescription to deal with that, but I didn't bring it. But okay, okay.
Bev Brooks:Oh my goodness, so moving along.
Amy Castro:So we drove and drove Again, beautiful weather, saw some pretty countryside, and we ended up in Whitefield, virginia, and I'm going to call them out the Ramada Inn because I don't know, like what do I know about hotels? I mean, I know what the high-end hotels are, but like, the only thing I know about Ramada is my grandparents had their 50th anniversary at the Ramada in Charleston, south Carolina, like in the seventies, and so I thought it was kind of a nice place, and maybe some of them are, I think I have been at other Ramadas, but when you pull in and of course it's getting dark and there are people drinking beer sitting out in front of their hotel rooms but I try not to be judgy, okay, and so we go, we check in and you know, no problem checking in. The lady was very sweet, showed where breakfast was, she tells us where our room is. We drive around and what was the first thing that you noticed that made us think, hmm, maybe we should go find someplace else to stay.
Amy Castro:Bev, what jumped out to you? The odor, the mildew.
Bev Brooks:Oh, okay Wasn't that.
Amy Castro:The one Was that the hotel that had the mildew smell. Yes, that was the mildew smell, but I'm talking about, even before we got in the room, what was sitting in front of our hotel room. Oh, the broken down car?
Bev Brooks:yes, there was a car with, like what, two flat tires. I might as well have had the food open or whatever. Yeah, it had been rained on and and it was filthy. It had been there and wasn't even in the parking spot. Correctly, it was a?
Amy Castro:yeah it was yeah, it was basically in half, part way into our parking spot, which would have allowed us to back straight up to our door that's right safely yeah, but no, it was part way into the spot. Right in front of our sketchy door there were people partying upstairs.
Bev Brooks:We go in the not so faint smell of mold and mildew yeah, that almost put me over the edge, like it was getting so late. I'm like just let's suck it up, let's not try again, let's just power through this hotel.
Amy Castro:Yeah yeah, despite the fear of bed bugs, and oh, I didn't even think that. You know, strangely, of course I didn't have my black light with me, but strangely enough the sheets and the mattress looked new and so maybe we just got lucky. But yeah, so I tried fixing the whole mildew smell by squirting hand sanitizer on the air conditioner, because I had some very strong smelling Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer in my purse and I'm not sure that that helped, but it made me feel better doing it.
Bev Brooks:I think we just got used to the smell, because I didn't notice it by the time we left.
Amy Castro:Yeah, and we survived.
Bev Brooks:And we got out of there early.
Amy Castro:Yeah, we were gone, but yeah, nothing happened. It wasn't terrible and I think the lesson learned there is sometimes a good deal is not such a good deal, because I was thinking, oh, and the thing is, this hotel had very high ratings and it was also listed on some pet friendly websites and that was something I know you mentioned you wanted to talk about, about the whole hotels and pet friendly yeah.
Bev Brooks:I was flabbergasted at the amount of hotels that when you did your criterion criteria sorry, the distance and the ratings and then pet friendly I was amazed, absolutely amazed, at how many hotels are pet friendly. Like, if you want to travel with your pet, have at it, because you have a plethora to pick from. That's a big word, plethora, that's a good one, it's a good one, it's a good one. So yeah, I was. I was totally blown away by by that but, yeah, all in all, and and and.
Bev Brooks:also, when you go into these hotel rooms, whether they're constantly used by dogs or not, there was never evidence one way or the other. Everything was very clean as far as animals go, and it was, I don't know. It was a whole new experience for me Traveling with a dog. I've never had a dog.
Amy Castro:Yeah, I've never traveled with a pet in a hotel, for sure.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, it was great.
Amy Castro:We always had a travel trailer, so we just took our pets that way. But, yeah, the one thing I would say is, if you've not done it, make sure you look carefully and find out if there are restrictions as far as how many pets, how's the size of the pets? And I will say that the pet deposits varied pretty wildly, you know, anywhere from $35 on the lower end to $125, you know, and these are not fancy schmancy hotels that we were staying at. So something to consider when you're saying, oh look, this hotel room is only $268. Well, now you're paying that plus a hundred and something dollars in a pet fee, something to be aware of. But I think we got off pretty well and they've gotten smart too. I mean all of the rooms that we stayed in well. First of all, they didn't have carpet, which I like better anyway, because that's cleaner for everybody, I think, assuming somebody mops it, but it's got to be cleaner than a regular hotel carpet.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, I never thought of it that way.
Amy Castro:Yeah, you're right, cause good Lord, who knows what's in those things. Okay, so anyway. So we took off like a bat out of hell from Wyethville, virginia, and then we, and then we moved on and at some point along the way I realized it was now the. What day was that we left? The 9th, so now it's the 11th and we're not supposed to be in New York, even though we're maybe six, seven miles, six or seven hours away from our destination.
Amy Castro:We're not supposed to be there for at least two more days. So now, what do we do, bev, I don't know, for at least two more days. So now what do we do, bev, I don't know? I called a relative who I had kind of planned on staying with, but it was inconvenient for that relative. So we won't name that relative and they sort of had a legit excuse, but I was a little butthurt over it anyway. But anyway, so we now had to slow down. Oh, I know why. So I tried calling the adopter to see if maybe we could just kind of cruise on in early and then cruise on to Cape Cod early as well, but unfortunately that was not going to work out. So we had to stick with the 13th of the drop-off day and that was fine.
Amy Castro:So what did we decide to do? Oh, we decided to go to Gettysburg. Yes, that's in Pennsylvania, right?
Bev Brooks:Yes, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. But on the way there we figured oh, we'll take pictures of all the states that we're going to go through. How did that work out? Oh, yeah, Remember, We'll put her in front of a sign that says welcome to West Virginia or welcome to Virginia. No, we got Arkansas. Yeah, We'll pass a sign on the highway that says you know state line three miles. And sure enough, neither one of us could figure out to get our phones ready in three miles to take a picture of the sign that says welcome to West Virginia.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, we went through Virginia, west Virginia, maryland and Pennsylvania in one day. Four, that's a lot. Four states in one day, four, that's a lot Four states in one day.
Amy Castro:When did we go to Tennessee? That was the first day, that was the second day.
Bev Brooks:That was Memphis. That was second day, yeah, but in that one day we went through four states and we still couldn't figure it out. I think it was your fault.
Amy Castro:I think it was 100% you.
Bev Brooks:So we went to Gettysburg.
Amy Castro:Yeah, we went to Gettysburg. Yeah, so we went to Gettysburg, which I had been through there like once before, but not anything extended. You had been there. Who did you go with, bev?
Bev Brooks:I went with all my peeps from CPD Shout out to Clarkstown Police yo. I went with Al and Lori Okay and Jimmy Quinn Awesome, and we did spend some time and Jimmy and Al were quite the experts on the whole battle and everything. But what we didn't do was what Amy and I did was rented the self-driving auto tour. It was awesome that was really cool.
Bev Brooks:It was a lot more detail and it was really well done where you drive along point to point and listen to the audio narration. It was really well done. We did that two places. We did it at the next stop, also in Valley Forge, which was awesome.
Amy Castro:Yeah, yeah, so yeah, all in all Gettysburg was lovely yeah. Yeah, I don't think the beer at lunch was a good idea, though, because I thought it was Grandma, didn't. I'm too old to drink during the day. I just can't handle it anymore. You're weak, I know, I know. We went and we had a really nice lunch. I can't remember the name of the place.
Bev Brooks:We had a nice lunch in Gettysburg. It was called the Dobbin House.
Amy Castro:We had a nice lunch there and a beer in this nice dark kind of colonial feeling tavern-y kind of place. And then we come up to the screeching bright sunlight and Bev's like you want to go walk around. I'm like no, I want to go to bed right now.
Bev Brooks:No, it's beautiful. We finally. It had been so hot and humid and this was like one of the first days we could have the windows rolled down. It was beautiful out. No, she wants to. She's hired. She had a. She had a beer at two o'clock in the afternoon. Holy crap, yeah, I'm too old for that shit. One beer, one beer.
Amy Castro:It wasn't like we had a six pack or something. It was one beer and she's out Lightweight. Yeah, I'm hardly a lightweight, but uh yeah, day drinking is out of my, out of my purview at this point. So anyway, we stayed at a very nice little place. It was very conveniently located, it was very easy to access with the pup who, by the way, was the perfect little gentle woman in the hotel rooms, didn't make the dog, didn't make a peep.
Bev Brooks:The whole trip Like she doesn't, she's not a barker. There was one hotel where she was getting playful and she was, you know, doing the down thing and it was just a little like she was excited, she wanted to play and that was it. There was nothing. Nothing in the car, nothing in the hotel, nothing when we were walking Zero.
Amy Castro:She was awesome, she was great, although I will say so, we stayed at the inn at Cemetery Hill. Yes, and it literally backs right up to Cemetery Hill, which is where obviously, a lot of the Civil War dead are buried.
Amy Castro:And of course, of course. That was the one night where Bonnie did fuss at four something in the morning and then I had to go out with the ghosts and walk her around in the dark. Did I know that? I think you were sleeping? I don't think you. I didn't even know you got up. Yeah, it was like four, you know, cause you said something about it the next day about getting up at 415. Maybe you didn't know. I actually left.
Amy Castro:But, yeah, oh, I left the door. I left the hotel room door open, by the way, while I went out.
Bev Brooks:What could happen? Don't worry about it.
Amy Castro:I kept the door sort of in my sight most of the time I was outside so I didn't want to mess with the key. It was dark in the room, I couldn't find the key. I just grabbed the dog and the leash and then I just put the little flapper thing in the door to keep it open while I left.
Bev Brooks:Did she even go? Did she go to the bathroom?
Amy Castro:I think she peed, but that was about it. I was surprised that she fussed at all and fussed at all about and maybe she didn't even need to go out. Maybe she was just being fussy, but I didn't want to take any chances with her bathroom habits being all off kilter. True, true, because no, nobody needs that in a crate oh, some kind of explosive incident. So bonnie and I went out amongst the ghosts and one jogger who was running at 4 30 in the morning wow and uh took care of business and yeah.
Amy Castro:So yeah, gettysburg was cool. I definitely recommend taking the self-guided tour. If anyone wants to know, you can just reach out. I'll give you the link to the one that we used, because it was. It was pretty darn good it was good it was really good, yeah, yeah. So from there we are now dangerously close to our destination, but yet we can't. We can't still go there. So where do we go next, bev.
Bev Brooks:Looks like we stopped at Valley Forge.
Amy Castro:Yes, we stopped at Valley Forge and that was like completely unplanned, Didn't we just see signs on the freeway and thought this will be a good way to kill a couple hours. Let's go to Valley Forge.
Bev Brooks:I forget how it came up, whether it was signs on the freeway or the handy dandy road atlas. That was a gift from my bestie that. She knows how I love paper maps instead of the GPS crap, so we might have. I don't know where we found it, but yeah, we were. We were ridiculously close. We had to go there. So that was. It was a beautiful park. If I lived down there, I'd be in that park every day, walking, jogging. Who am I kidding? Walking?
Amy Castro:Well, there was a lot of people yeah, that are, obviously, and it was. It was very spread out. That was something I was I didn't realize about, uh, valley Forge or Gettysburg, like I think I envisioned Gettysburg as a football field with the North on one side and the South on the other, and that's that's where everything happened, right, and the same thing with Valley Forge. It's like Washington's in this little space and it was just spread out over miles.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, it was crazy.
Amy Castro:I don't even know how to coordinate that you don't even have a cell phone or radios to call. I don't even know how they that's a whole other podcast.
Bev Brooks:Well, they probably had that audio self-guided tour.
Amy Castro:That's right. Your next step is to move forward over here on day two of the battle.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, that one was good too. That was a well-done guided tour as well.
Amy Castro:And then we moved on and we kind of went back and forth about whether we were going to stay right where the adopted family lived or whether we were going to stay a little bit further away, and logistically I think we ended up about an hour away away, and logistically I think we ended up about an hour away. Now, something we have not mentioned about this trip although I alluded to car troubles is that I think on the second day of our trip we had one tire the left oh sorry, the driver's side rear tire had a little bit lower tire pressure right, and so we put a little air in it one day, and the next day had a little bit less air in it, and so we put more air in it. And then, despite the fact that Bev had already been outdoors with the dog, she was not observant enough to see that our car had a completely flat tire when we were at our last stop Because I went out the different door.
Amy Castro:Oh yeah, okay, that's right.
Bev Brooks:Suck it.
Amy Castro:She went out the back. Oh yeah, okay, that's right, she went out the back, did you say? You didn't say f*** it.
Bev Brooks:Did you say f*** it?
Amy Castro:I said suck it Okay good, because we don't say f*** on this podcast. I'm going to have to put some kind of warning on here, I think, or I'll have to bleep us out, anyway. So yeah, so we, so we had a complete flat tire. So this is in Branch what was it called? Again Branch, I don't know. Oh goodness, I texted it to you earlier today. You didn't text me. No, it doesn't matter. Does it really matter, listeners? Does it really matter? It does, because Branch Water.
Bev Brooks:Branchville, Branch Town. All I know is they have the spotted lanternfly that they need to take care of.
Amy Castro:Oh yeah, that was a big thing. Bev tried to kill this invasive bug and she made it jump on my clothes when we were at a restaurant.
Bev Brooks:I instructed it to do that.
Amy Castro:She did. It was like a damn tiddlywink.
Bev Brooks:The funny.
Amy Castro:Thing was she stepped on it Branchburg, new Jersey. Branchburg whatever. She stepped on it and it flew out from under her foot and, like landed in my face, almost went in my mouth. Now it really didn't it landed on my trauma drama.
Bev Brooks:The best part was walking out of the hotel. We're ready to. I we hadn't had. Why were we going to the car? I think we were bringing down some of the luggage first and then we're gonna go have breakfast inside the hotel. Yeah, we both look at the the car and we just stopped. Neither one of us said anything. We're just staring at the car and we just stop. Neither one of us said anything. We're just staring at the flat tire, like just absorbing what we're seeing, like that's flat. Is that really flat? It's flat, it's totally flat. Look at that. Look at that.
Amy Castro:It's just flat. We should have known Normal people would have had a problem with the tire two days before and would have contacted Avis about the tire. But not me, because my philosophy is just keep going. It doesn't matter if you're almost out of gas, just keep going. And so I just figured I was going to wait till we got to Cape Cod, and then I was going to report that the tire was having a problem.
Bev Brooks:Driving into the ground.
Amy Castro:We just didn't. I just thought we could keep putting air in it.
Bev Brooks:I didn't realize it was going to be an issue I kind of did too, because it was only dropping between one and three pounds every day.
Amy Castro:Yeah, minor, minor leakage, but obviously all the miles probably added up.
Bev Brooks:So we had a flat tire yeah, Pacifica.
Amy Castro:This is where I'm thinking to myself I'm so glad this isn't my car, because if it was my car I'd have to call, like a towing company and a mechanic or well. No, I could have changed my own tire. Disregard, because it would have been better if I'd had my own car, because not only did this car not have a spare or a jack to put on it, but I spent an hour on the phone trying to get a replacement car. So they literally towed this car away on a flatbed for a flat tire, because apparently you can't just change the tire.
Amy Castro:And then it was the big issue of where are we going to get another car? I thought they were going to bring me a car, like I thought we would have been sitting at the hotel and somebody would just deliver a car to me. But no, it doesn't happen that way. So I spent an hour on the phone trying to get a replacement and finally the person says I can get you a replacement at Newark Airport. Well, that was like almost an hour away, and anybody who has navigated Newark Airport knows you don't want to go there if you don't have to. And then I was going to have to Uber there, not at my own expense, apparently, but I was going to have to Uber there, go through the hassle, get the car and then drive all the way back to pick up Bev and the dog, because obviously we're not all going to pile into an Uber to go pick up a car, are we?
Bev Brooks:I want to stop you right there. Everything you need to know about life is in this next phrase You're going to have to find another solution for me. That's what Amy said to the person at Avis You're going to have to find another solution for me.
Amy Castro:That right there will solve every problem in your life from now on. Mark my words. There you go. Yeah, I'm not going to fight with you, I'm not going to argue with you, but yeah, I was not taking the car at Newark, sorry to say friends. Luckily she was able to go back and call the places that either weren't open, hadn't answered the phone or whatever, and found us a rental car. That was supposed to be 15 minutes, it was more like 20.
Amy Castro:We got ourselves a pet-friendly Uber. That was something I learned. I didn't realize that as you scroll down the list of the types of Uber cars you could get, that you could get one that was specifically for pets, because I thought somebody's going to be pissed when they show up here and they see us the dog, the dog's crate, the cooler, our bags and all the crap that we're toting into the Uber. So, anyway, our Uber friend picked us up. He was a lovely gentleman, kept us entertained by talking the entire trip to the Avis place and then he stayed while I was getting the car and continued to talk to Bev.
Bev Brooks:Yes, he did.
Amy Castro:But he was lovely and we got into our new vehicle. And I will say, for those who road trip with pets, especially if you ever rent something, my initial inclination was going to be to rent an SUV, because that just makes sense to me, right With a dog and stuff. But at the last minute I started thinking about my very ugly but very appreciated 2005 Chevy Astro van that was donated to our animal rescue. And she may not be pretty, but the way that that van is laid out on the inside is perfect for traveling with pets and pet stuff. And so I rented a Chrysler minivan, a Pacifica, and it was a lovely ride. It was very easy to get Bonnie in and out, of, to get our stuff in and out of, for her to be able to move around.
Bev Brooks:So highly recommend traveling in a van if those are your options between SUP and van. You might not look good doing it, but it was really good.
Amy Castro:Yeah, we didn't look cool, but that's okay, we're not cool anyway we just think we are, we are totally cool.
Bev Brooks:Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Amy Castro:Okay, louise, no, ma, all right. So by the time we get the whole car thing and we've got to be wrapping up this story because we're coming up on the end of our time for this podcast episode by the time we get the car thing squared away, we are now going to be easily two hours late for meeting the adopter who we told we were going to meet at 10 in the morning, although I did give him a heads up at 10 in the morning, although I did give him a heads up, unfortunately, the sad part was is that he had planned to have his little girl there and his wife there and people were there, you know, to meet all, meet the dog at the same time. Because, back to the issue of transporting pets across the country, another one of my things is I really wanted to be there to supervise the handoff. I feel like I've got a good way of doing that. I've got a good. You know, I do have an animal behavior certificate that I got. So I, you know, I can kind of.
Amy Castro:I was just afraid at the last minute that I didn't want to see some behavior on the part of the dog or on the part of the child or the part of the guy that would say, you know, maybe maybe Linda didn't get a chance to see this, but I'm seeing this now kind of like the lady that showed up at my house one time to pick up a puppy and then proceeded to slap her own dog in the face because it was acting the fool. And I was like, yeah, okay, well, I'll let you know. I mean, it's just people can look great on paper, they can sound great on the phone, they can sound great when you meet them. And it was just that one interaction where her dog was acting silly and she got annoyed and she and she didn't hit him hard, but it was the principle of the thing. She just gave him a pop in the face and I thought, what's she going to do to this puppy? And you could tell she knew she'd screwed up because then she tried to be like backpedaling at all, anyway.
Amy Castro:So I wanted to see how this guy was with the dog and so, yeah, it might've been crazy to spend the time, spend the money, but the great thing about Starlight Outreach and Rescue is that we've got fantastic volunteers and supporters who, a understand that and B are willing to support that financially. So we were able to raise the money to cost. You know, I was kind of shocked about that. I was a little worried that she might cause she's been around a lot of women in in pretty much everywhere she's lived since, uh, since we've had her. So, anyway, what are your, what were your impressions when we dropped her off as somebody who doesn't do this handoff stuff all the time?
Bev Brooks:I got the same impression right away that two of them clicked immediately and it was just a. The whole feeling of the home was just a warm, cozy, very family. You just got a good, good vibe going in there. But for me, only knowing Bonnie I think I had met her once, the previous Christmas I went down to see you maybe. But I got to know her pretty intensely over these last four days. I started tearing up. I'm like, is this what parents go through when their kids go to college, or?
Amy Castro:I don't know, I don't have kids, I don't know.
Bev Brooks:So I'm like, oh, is this going to be okay? Do they know? Do they know what? You know how to treat her? Is they going to treat her right? But of course they do. There's millions of people that treat animals right every day and it was.
Bev Brooks:It was very emotional for me that handoff, you know, and and just but immediately bonnie was walking right over to him at the couch and when she, you know, scoped out the house, whatever, she went right back to him and was just very sweet, invited herself up on the couch, was very comfortable. I'm not surprised. She's a very easygoing, very polite dog. Um, she doesn't know me from a hole in the wall and when I had to say no or yes or whatever, she listened to me like she doesn't know me from a hole in the wall. And when I had to say no or yes or whatever, she listened to me Like she doesn't know me, but she listened to me. So I, it was just. It was really sweet to see that. I wish I had seen when the little girl got to meet her.
Amy Castro:Yeah, but she definitely clicked with dad. Yeah, he did. He did send some cute photos. And another thing that was super cool is that they, you know, I that they, you know I would never have thought to do this, but they had a basket full of treats and toys with balloons attached to it and it's like, yeah, I never would have done that. You're lucky I let you in the door if I you know that kind of thing.
Amy Castro:So they, they were definitely excited and had been waiting a while I mean, it'd been several weeks for us to pull this, you know, pull this whole trip off and and get this whole process completed. So so, yeah, we spent, you know, about an hour or so there, maybe not even because, but at that point my, my biggest concern was the, the transition with the child, and I felt really good that he had a handle on um, you know, on Bonnie and understanding animal behavior and how to introduce them, and you know, we'd already put the guy through the ringer with the interviews and whatever, whatever else. So, so we just basically skedaddled and then we continued on to Cape Cod and just went whew.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you what leaving there um felt really really good. Um, I had zero questions that it would work out Zero. I felt so good about leaving her there. It seemed like a really super perfect fit.
Amy Castro:Yeah, yeah, I felt this. I felt the same way and you know we, like you said, we had enough backup support, should something. I mean, even if you know I did stay in Cape Cod for a couple extra days. So if something two days, three days down had not worked out, I could have rented another car and gone back down to pick her up and gone from there.
Bev Brooks:But luckily and I probably would have taken that drive with you and flown back. I totally would have done that again. You're a very easy travel companion, for sure.
Amy Castro:So are you. Oh, I love you.
Bev Brooks:I love you too.
Amy Castro:All right, I said it, it's on the air. Okay, so to wrap this thing up in the next like two or three minutes here, closing thoughts. What did you think about the experience? Any favorite moments that you haven't already mentioned, if I?
Bev Brooks:would do it again. I probably would. You had mentioned a larger amount of dogs in an earlier conversation. We had Not being around dogs a whole lot. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with more than one or two, but it's definitely doable. You know, just small bites along the way and it's. You could go all the way to California easy peasy, not a problem, even with a flat tire.
Amy Castro:There you go and being flexible, I think. Yeah, we were talking. I told Bev maybe we should go into the dog transport business after we retire. Well, she's already retired, but when I retire it could be like Thelma and Louise dog transport service or something like. I don't know about all that, but yeah, it's, it's.
Bev Brooks:it is a lot. There's a lot of planning and, like you said, being flexible about the whole thing and always coming up with a different solution. Yeah, gotta have a solution.
Amy Castro:Yeah, I mean, I think it was definitely. It was definitely, in my opinion, obviously worth it. It was a little crazy, but I think when you make a commitment you know I made a commitment to that dog when I took her into the program and I just felt, you know about her particularly and we've made different decisions about other animals, you know some animals just aren't safe to be adopted and but with her I just felt like you know, that one rather major flaw but was a manageable flaw and something that shouldn't mean that she doesn't get to be on this earth and that there would be the right person who could manage that situation, who could work on her training and handle that. And so I think it was a good choice, I feel good about it and that's, you know, for me, in doing rescue, like and I've said this before on the show sometimes people get pissed off when they don't like.
Amy Castro:You know that they get rejected for adoption and they think they're perfectly great and you know, my, my bottom line is always I'm the one that has to live with the decision, and so what you think about yourself, that's awesome. But I'm making a decision based on what I know and what I, what I can live with and I can't live with that. So that's just the way it is. I mean, that's sometimes in rescue. You just do the best you can, and it's got to be what you can live with.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, yeah, that commitment to making sure she gets a great home is is makes the job easier to me. It's like there's there's your answer right there the commitment to the animal's well-being no-transcript.
Amy Castro:When you're looking for pets to adopt, if you're not finding something local, expand that reach. You know, a lot of times I think people are. I was actually talking to somebody today and was talking about how she was talking about how convenient it was that everything in her world was like 10 or 15 minutes from her house and it's like there's nothing. 10 or 15 minutes from my house. Everything from my house is like an hour any, any place that I'm going to go, or at least 30 minutes, and so time and distance is is relative. But sometimes you got to be willing to get outside of your zone to to find what's right for you. So you know, when you're on those sites like Pet Finder or Adopt-A-Pet again, if you're not finding something that you're looking for, you know, expand your zip codes, look where you have friends or relatives that you'd be willing to go visit, assuming that those organizations do out-of-state adoptions, which some won't because they want to be able to. You know, keep tabs on their pets, but it's worth at least looking into.
Bev Brooks:So any any other final thoughts before we wrap this up. I got nothing. I got nothing. I love traveling with you. I love road trip food.
Amy Castro:She eats the weirdest things, but that's for another episode. But I'm sorry, I don't. I don't. Twizzlers no.
Bev Brooks:Oh yeah, oh yeah, you got turned on to gummy bears.
Amy Castro:Yes, I did eat gummy bears, um, and they weren't. They weren't the special ones, they were just regular ones.
Bev Brooks:Yeah, they were the Buc-ee's. Oh yeah, and I have to say you did go out of your way to find me a Buc-ee's so I can get my uh, the beaver nuggets. They were awesome.
Amy Castro:Yes, we did. We did stop at a Buc-ee's, and outside of Texas, of all places.
Bev Brooks:I know it was sacrilegious, but we did it.
Amy Castro:Yep, we did it All right. So, everybody, that was our journey, our road trip with Bonnie to take her from Texas uncertainty to a forever home in New York. We hope you enjoyed our crazy story and our crazy adventure, and I thank you for listening and joining us on this journey. So, with that said, I don't know what else to say. Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk. Be sure to visit our website at wwwstarlightpettalkcom for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. If you enjoyed and found value in today's episode, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple. Or if you'd simply tell a friend about. If you enjoyed and found value in today's episode, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple. Or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show, that would be great too. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.
