Saki is home!!!!!!!!!!!

And he is wonderful!!!!!!!!

Despite him not being totally house broken he is so lovely and loving and we are all very pleased to have him here.

This morning he arrived in NZ at 05.45. We were told that we should be ok if we arrived around 06.15.
So in our “naive ness” Bill and I thought to get some papers signed and then take Saki home by 07.00. But nothing was further from the truth as we were sent from office to office filling in papers and paying each for the honour.
The longest wait was at the customs office. I told the two young custom officers that helped us the Saki story, he was a rehomer from England via Aussie and we paid nothing for him except for part of his flight over. Away they went to complete the papers. After about 30 minutes they came back with one very angry supervisor that told me that he quite frankly though my story very unbelievable and that because Saki was an extremely rare breed he was no doubt very expensive and I was to pay tax accordingly. I told him my story was not a lie and that Saki was not a dog that was to breed from, he had after all been castrated a few weeks earlier. Well that may be but according to him Saki was still worth a lot of money and since Estrelas sold for about 800 euros in Holland he would let me import Saki with a tax calculated on “very reasonable” 1000 dollars!
At this stage it was extremely lucky that Bill had come with me as he helped to keep me from doing something very unkind to the custom officers supervisor. I guess these people see a lot of un-honest people in their line of business so they turn into the most cynical mean people imaginable. We were made to wait another hour….. poor Saki still waiting…
For me the principle of basically being called a liar was the biggest anger maker. But we were being held over a barrel, we either paid the nearly 300 dollar tax or leave Saki where he was. When the papers were finally ready we paid the money and left wondering if these people can still enjoy life if they feel they can never trust anyone and treat everyone like (please excuse my language) shit.
I have to admit if it was up to the 2 young customs officers it would have gone in a much friendlier way so I apologize to them for my unkind words.

Off to the third and last office. Here they told us we were missing a form from customs AAaaagggghhhh now I really did look somewhat frustrated. My dear brother Bill went back to get the forgotten form. He probably didn’t trust me with them again. This time it didn’t take quite as long.
In a room at the back somewhere was Saki. The people here were really nice and all were so impressed by Saki. One woman had taken a photo of him to show her young son and proudly showed me her memento of him. Others asked in amazement if “the big dog” was going to go home with us. They were all charmed by this big boy who found it all a bit scary what was going to happen to him now. I thought at the time that he was going to need a lot of tender care to give him confidence but once we had him on the leash and he saw our car he just jumped in and enjoyed the ride and hasn’t looked back since!
So after nearly 3 hours Saki was finally going home!!!

Once home we let him into the garden with Kiwi, then Rowi, then Tieka, Zanna and Vaglie and lastly once things had calmed down, as there was a lot of running and playing going on, Rusty.
He just fitted in. Sometimes the girls, or should I say bitches, will tell him off but that actually makes him want to love them more ;-). Hahaha men are such suckers for a forceful girl.

Why anyone would have wanted to give Saki away is beyond me. In just one day he has proved he is so loving, has a great sense of humour, is really smart and very gentle.

My baby Kiwi has grown up. She has taken it upon herself to play with Saki outside and be the strict “bringer upper” inside. He dose need it a bit because he is slightly naughty boy (in a funny way) in puberty having lacked enough close human contact at this crucial time. But its nothing to be worried about, he is a great normal young man.

Oh, and the extra bonus of Saki at the moment is that because of his haircut and his still furry large head with small ears he looks just like “Fozzie bear” from the muppets. And his happy attitude and character is the same as Fozzies too. Well who wouldn’t walk around with a permanent grin when you see that all day LOL.

Im sure he is going to be a pain in the butt and no doubt break and chew things but in the mean time…….

Thanks to you all for helping us get Saki home and making him and our family so happy!!!