If you hang out at the airport long enough, you see some amazing things: reunions, goodbyes, excitement, frustration.
A man looking for his dog.
KUT met Mohamed Saher at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport last spring while recording an episode for the 24 Hours podcast. He said his puppy was stuck in a crate somewhere.
Saher's friend had shipped the 1-year-old German shepherd from Slovakia on a Lufthansa flight. Now, he had to turn in paperwork to clear customs and take the dog home. But he didn’t know who to talk to to make it happen.
Saher had already gone to the Lufthansa counter and to Customs and Border Protection. He had talked to multiple people on the phone.
The dog’s name was Pamela – after Pamela Anderson. She had been partially trained as a schutzhund, or protection dog. Typically, a person would pay thousands of dollars for a dog like her, but Saher got her from a friend. He just had to pay about $2,000 for Pamela’s flight to the U.S.
While families reunited with their loved ones at the airport, Saher stood outside a closed CBP door. A woman at an information counter told him wait there and peek inside to try and talk to someone.
“My name is Mohamed,” he told KUT. “I’ll get shot [just] so I can peek.”
Saher said it’s hard to interact with people because he has Aspergers. After being diagnosed six years ago, he has tried improving his social skills.
“I memorized jokes so I can easily slip them in [a conversation] and people can feel more at ease,” he said. At some point, someone told him he didn’t blink enough, so he now reminds himself to blink while talking to others.
Saher, who already has a dog named Vida, said he's loved dogs since he was a kid. Dogs don’t require him to be socially apt.
“The best thing about that I have a dog is that she doesn’t have to talk," he said.
Pamela is not a typical pet, though. Saher didn't get her only for the company. He said his dream is to have a competition dog and go to a world championship. Pamela stayed in Slovakia to get the best protection training there is, he said.
“It’s not a one-man’s job,” Saher says. He tried joining a club in the U.S. to learn how to train her, but he didn’t feel accepted there. He said he plans to finish Pamela’s training on tracking, obedience and protecting skills by himself.
Finally, a man came out and asked for “the person with the dog.”
Saher gave him a stack of papers: ID, proof of vaccinations and a copy of Pamela's travel documents. The man disappeared once more behind the metal door.
After waiting almost 30 minutes, the man came back and returned the papers. Saher then left the main terminal and drove to Terminal T, where there were a bunch of Amazon trailers and a strip of offices with numbers on them. Pamela was waiting for him at door 25.
At first, she was scared to come out the kennel, but Saher made her feel at ease.
Once outside, Saher spoke to Pamela in Slovakian. Sit, he said, and she did. She looked at him, her long pointy ears perked. She sniffed her surroundings. She was with a new human, on a new continent, in a new city. She was finally in Austin. This was home now.
This story was included in the latest episode of 24 Hours in Austin, a podcast that looks at what a day in the life of Austin sounds like. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
