Puppy travel & possible registered names!

When you live in California and you decide to get a puppy from eastern Canada, you know that travel is going to be A Thing.

We (my dad and I) are currently somewhat on the fence about whether to fly to Buffalo to get the puppy, or to have him shipped from Toronto. It's more expensive for people to fly from San Francisco to Toronto; Buffalo is a little further from the breeder, but cheaper and then we wouldn't have to cross the border. The puppy flying from Toronto, though, is way cheaper than us flying roundtrip to Buffalo. Toronto has direct flights to/from San Francisco; Buffalo doesn't. I wouldn't consider a non-direct flight for the puppy by himself. With shipping the puppy, you also have to consider heat ... So there is a small possibility I could get him a week early if we go that route.

Tons of people—people who know what they're talking about—have told me that puppies are shipped by themselves on planes all the time with no physical or psychological ill effects. A friend just had her new little SD candidate shipped to her, and he's doing great. But I still make up worst case scenarios in my head. It's kinda what I do. So all things being equal, I'd rather go get the puppy, despite the possible hassles of traveling with two dogs and attempting to do a potty break with a baby puppy on our return layover. Knowing exactly where he is and how he's doing the entire time would make me feel so much better.

However, flying both my dad and myself to Buffalo is, um, really expensive and thus makes all things not so equal. Not even counting in the pet ticket for the way back. And this is if we took a red-eye so we wouldn't have to spend a night in a hotel. It's considerably more expensive than shipping the puppy. But ... Dad all of a sudden is kinda excited about the prospect of staying over and going to see Niagara Falls. That could help in getting us to Buffalo! Decisions, I am so incredibly terrible at making them sometimes.

See how the fence sitting thing works? All right, enough of the agonizing over travel. Here, have a picture of 17-day-old puppies.

AND ... Here are the three picks I'm sending off to Maura for Kaline's registered name. She has final say, and might not choose any of these three. It was great fun picking them anyway!

Gatehouse Michigan & Trumbull (The Corner, where Tiger Stadium was located in Detroit)
Gatehouse As Time Goes By (cause his dad's name is Ambermark's Play It Again)
Gatehouse Lucky I'm Cute (cause this is the L litter)