The Foreign Service Journal, October 2011

O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 55 y wife and I are not really pet people. We grew up with a dog apiece, both mutts who had never seen the inside of a veterinarian’s office, along with the occasional guinea pig and semi-tropical fish. But we have tried to accommo- date our growing family with a variety of household animals. We started simply enough with some cats to help sort out the mice in Port-au-Prince. We picked up a few felines from the litter of some friends and put them to work, not antici- pating how attached the kids would get to these mouse-eat- ing machines (as long as they didn’t think about the mice), and thinking even less about the complications of moving with animals when the time came. In the end we decided to leave the cats with a combination of household staff and friends when we transferred, convinc- ing ourselves that they would be better off in their warm, na- tive Haiti, than cool, distant Washington, D.C. Still, we wondered what happened to those cats, particularly those that ended up with the household help in protein-starved Haiti. We decided that from then on, we would leave no pet be- hind. The Cycle of Life By the time we left Washington, we had acquired a rabbit and two gerbils. Their transfer seemed simple enough — how hard could it be to get three rodents fromWashington to Budapest? We researched airline policy and found there was a $100 charge for pets traveling with passengers, reasonable enough if calculated per container. The gerbils were placed in a small cage, which then went into the rear of a larger cage for the rabbit. Unfortunately, our airline representative was less creative in interpreting regulations, and impervious to Jedi mind tricks. Upon looking at the policy carefully, she went for the $100-per-pet option. We were by this time committed to the leave-no-pet-be- hind imperative, as we did not want the kids to associate mov- ing with always losing their furry or scaly companions. But we were just as committed to not leaving $300 behind. We jousted verbally but reached no conclusion as the line of cus- tomers grew, something I was convinced would increase our leverage. But we remained at a standstill; even the addition of a manager didn’t help. In the end it was the rabbit that turned the tables. “Kids, bring me the rabbit,” I said, “and we’ll let them analyze our configuration before they so quickly dismiss it.” Up on the counter went the cage, with the nervous rabbit strewing saw- dust and rabbit pellets all over papers and computers. The battle was over before it started: “Okay, sir, you can take your pesky rabbit and gerbils for the one-pet fee.” The rabbit and gerbils were happy enough in Budapest but, having a limited lifespan, were not around for long. There was a nice place in the field across the street that we L EAVE N O P ET B EHIND H OW HARD COULD IT TO BE TO TRANSPORT THREE RODENTS FROM W ASHINGTON , D.C., TO B UDAPEST ? Y OU MIGHT BE SURPRISED . B Y K EITH W. M INES M Keith Mines is director of the narcotics affairs section in Mex- ico City. He has previously served in Tel Aviv, San Salvador, Port-au-Prince, Budapest, Ottawa and Washington, D.C., along with his wife, Cecile, and their children, Jonathan, Joshua, Rachel and Daniel — and, of course, Rascal, Szitza and an unnamed albino corn snake.