There are many things that Facebook people heap scorn on, and one of them is the leaving of dogs behind when moving abroad. Time and again, when one of these pets come up for adoption, I’ve seen the comments quickly become an excoriation of the people who are leaving. “Why get dogs if you’re going to abandon them?” and more along those lines.

I’ve always maintained that we rarely know enough about people’s lives to be judgemental. Opportunities to move away don’t always announce themselves years in advance, and they’re not always to countries without quarantines. Can you, sitting on a social website, know what a family goes through trying to make a choice between finding a good home for their pet, and subjecting them to up to six months in a government isolation facility? These are terrible decisions that can haunt people for years.

For us, the choice wasn’t hard. We were travelling to the US, which has no quarantine as long as the pet’s rabies vaccinations are up to date. But even so, looking at Gunter in his crate at the airport just before check in, the reality of what we were about to do sunk in.

The plastic travel kennel suddenly looked very official, and very small. There was his export certificate taped to the top, along with a sleeve with identifying information and other document copies. The airline had slapped on many stickers, including a ‘live animal’ one, and one on every corner with arrows indicating “This side up”. Two packets of kibble and an extra leash were taped to the top. Gunter sat inside, surprisingly quiet as his door was zip-tied shut. He was baggage now.

Stoic extrovert

While a crate works as a den and keeps the dog feeling secure, it was a nine-hour journey to Frankfurt, and after a break (during which he’d be let out), another 11 hours to LAX. That’s a long time, secure den or not. We wondered what the loading procedure would be and what the airplane hold would be like. Would he bark himself crazy or would he just sleep the whole way? And all this worry with a dog who is a hearty, stoic extrovert. What if he’d been a delicate, fearful animal? It would have been a difficult decision, and certainly not one that random strangers should have opinions about.

To our huge relief, he was fine by journey’s end, if a little dehydrated and very hungry. And as we stood in line to get through customs, he was done. He started barking loudly, wanting to be let out of his crate. He barked his way right through the exit from the airport—nobody there missed his arrival. Soon after, he was out into the California air with us—no questions, no inspections, and most importantly, no quarantine.

At this point his difficult trip seemed like an easy choice, but perhaps you should have asked us as we sat in the plane, a part of our minds always with him in the hold, wondering how he was down there in the dark while we ate meals and watched movies. (Though, being able to lie down, he was probably more comfortable than we were.)

Journeys are simple — we leave one place and arrive at another. It’s what we carry with us and what we leave behind that complicates everything. The next morning, he ran across the thick grass at the Santa Anita Park, galloping between the two of us, dropping to the ground every now and then, rolling about in delight. We’d brought him to the US, but he brought us home.

Gautam Raja is a journalist based in Los Angeles.