“Sir, step aside.”

At 3:30 a.m., the den was still dark.

Not even the moon dared yawn yet.

But Jay was already up.

He had his coffee in one hand and a sleepy puppy in the other.

He was about to begin a day that would stretch from the misty ridges of Spokane to the steel canyons of New York City.

Boober blinked up at him, tail giving a single, lazy thwap-thwap as if to say,
“Really? This early, Alpha?”

The Katziela Rolling Rover sat by the car door, zipped and ready.

That soft-sided chariot was fit for a traveling pup with wheels gleaming, mesh sides ready to expand like wings once they were in the air.

Today, this wasn’t just a crate.

It was Boober’s ticket to destiny.

But then came…

The first test!

At the airport, Jay handed over his driver’s license with the calm confidence of a man who’s done this a hundred times.

The TSA agent squinted.

Looked up.

And squinted again.

“Sir… this isn’t an enhanced license.”

Jay blinked.

“It’s me, though. Same face. Same beard. Same man carrying a puppy.”

The agent’s expression didn’t budge.

In bureaucratic language, that meant: “We are about to make your life very difficult.”

Suddenly, Jay found himself in TSA limbo… neither cleared for takeoff nor denied outright, just stuck in an invisible purgatory of paperwork and suspicious glances.

Boober yawned in protest.

Somewhere, a clock ticked louder than an airplane engine.

For a breathless moment, it looked like this might be the end of the road before the runway.

But… miracle of miracles… the humans relented.

Jay was waved through.

The pack’s mission could continue.

By sunrise, they were in the air.

The hum of the engines blending with Boober’s slow, rhythmic breathing as he drifted to sleep.

An American Dirus™ pup on his first great migration east!

Hours passed.

Clouds rolled by like herds of ancient mammoths.

Jay sipped airplane coffee and whispered to Boober about his new family waiting in New York.

“You’re going to love them, little one,” he said. “They’re good people. You’ll see.”

And Boober, in his wise puppy way, gave a small sigh and tucked his nose beneath his paw, trusting Jay completely.

But oh…

The reunion!

At baggage claim, Boober walked out of his crate, tail wagging like a metronome set to “joy.”

His new family knelt to greet him, tears welling up as they met their fluffy new packmate.

Jay watched quietly, knowing this moment… the instant where a puppy leaves one den to begin life in another… was worth every ounce of exhaustion.

“Thirty minutes,” he told them with a grin. “Give him thirty minutes and he’ll be yours completely.”

And sure enough, Boober climbed into their arms as though he’d known them forever.

But then came…

The delayed flight.

“Folks, we’re sorry for the inconvenience, but our flight crew is… stuck in traffic.”

You could feel the collective groan ripple through the terminal as Jay sat on the hard black leather chairs waiting to board the flight back to Washington state.

Jay stared out the terminal window, muttering, “Of course they are.”

But when the engines of that Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle finally roared to life, they really roared!

The pilot announced they’d be rerouting south through St. Louis to avoid the jet stream in order to save the time that was lost due to traffic delays in New York.

Still, by the time they touched down in the drizzly Pacific northwest, Jay had been traveling nearly twenty hours.

As for Jay?

He did not make that connecting flight after all, so the airline provided him a hotel stay nearby and booked him a new flight today at 9:30 am.

He should be home around noon today.

There’s talk of a pilgrimage to the DMV to obtain the mystical Enhanced ID, that golden ticket of air travel.

We’ll see how that saga unfolds after he gets some well-deserved sleep.

So today, while Jay rests and Boober naps under a New York sun on his new family’s lap, we invite you to take a look at the new page we’ve just added to our Gift Shop:

• The DireWolf Express™ – Puppy Escort Service.
  See how our puppies travel in comfort and care.

Because when a DireWolf puppy travels, it’s never just a flight —

It’s an adventure worthy of a story in the pack’s long and growing history.

Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.