ROB’S STORIES · AIRPORT MISADVENTURES
Air Travel Sagas: The Beagle, the Bags and the Border Guard
Air travel stories often begin with a delay. Mine began with a nervous flyer—and then the beagle came back.
By Rob Wheatley – Program Director & traveler.
From the archives · Edited 22 October 2026
The short version: A short flight to Vancouver became a missing-baggage wait, an encounter with a detection dog and an airport interrogation. This is my personal account of how quickly an ordinary journey changed, what my anxious imagination added to it, and the two practical lessons I took away.
Air travel stories start innocently enough
The best air travel stories are usually better in the telling than in the living. This one certainly was.
Air travel, for the uninitiated or those who aren’t frequent flyers, comes with its own set of do’s and don’ts. Having logged so many air miles, I’ve learned a thing or two about what to do…and what not to do.
One of my biggest don’ts occurred when I was working for a large cruise line and had just landed a position as Fleet Cruise Director. It was a somewhat nebulous position that involved accompanying new Cruise Directors to their ships. This time, I was escorting a brand-new CD to a vessel based in Vancouver, Canada.
It was a short hop from Seattle to Vancouver on one of those puddle jumpers that whirred in a vibrating, screeching complaint as it climbed to altitude. The guy I was taking with me was not a good air traveller. In fact, his sweaty silence and white knuckles were making me nervous. I wondered how on earth his stress levels would cope with all the flying he’d need to do in his career.
Bumpy flight with a nervous traveller
This was one flight where I couldn’t wait to land. A wobbly bit of turbulence just southwest of Vancouver at 8,000 feet was a reminder from the sky gods that we really shouldn’t be up there and should continue our exit from the clouds ASAP. Simultaneously, the new CD was reminded that he needed to go to the bathroom. As he staggered off, I looked out of the window and relaxed, enjoying some beautiful Canadian greenery interspersed with shimmering, reflective water beneath. The guy came back whiter than the napkin beside my tray. I asked if he was OK. He tried to flash a PR smile, but it failed miserably.
Landing was a curious orchestration of machine against physics, the small propeller aircraft struggling against gusts from the left. We got down, and my colleague seemed to recover some normality by the time we reached the terminal.
The luggage carousel lottery
Like many air travel stories, this one acquired a missing-baggage chapter. Once in baggage claim, we took up the sport of watching an empty, motionless carousel while people jostled for prime position to snatch their bags.
I usually stand back from the melee, but previous travel had taught me to join the throng for one reason: I needed to keep an eye out for someone snatching the wrong luggage—namely, mine.
I’d previously spent three hours in a terminal looking for luggage that hadn’t arrived, filled out the lost-baggage form, only to find my case at customs because someone had accidentally taken it without checking the luggage tag. Nice of them to bring it back to the carousel—not!
A short burst of siren and a jerky start-up soon had the carousel displaying its first items of luggage. I’m constantly amazed by the array of baggage that jerks its way around: ancient-looking suitcases tied with rope, cardboard boxes secured with tape. When I see what happens to my Samsonite case, I’m staggered these items survive.
Murphy’s law decided to play that day. No luggage for my colleague or me. Everyone else had left, and we stood in eternal hope watching a few lonely cases rumble by, each rotation emerging through the plastic-strip curtain—just an encore identical to the last. Still no new additions, and none of the baggage belonged to us. Blah!
A beagle passes the time
Dead time in an airport terminal can be excruciating or fun. I guess it depends on your outlook. For me, it’s usually interesting. I find ways to amuse myself. If I’m travelling alone, I read, surf the web on my laptop or browse the shops. Simple stuff, really.
Or I just sit and watch people—one of my favourite pastimes. I see their weary faces and feel their pain as they stagger off some arduous international leg of air-travel agony.
I love to imagine their stories, what world travels they’re doing and where they’re going. Today, I decided to watch people while my colleague frantically searched for suitcases we already knew would only be coming on the next flight from Seattle. A customs officer was walking with a great-looking beagle.
The dog handler let me pet the dog. I’m not sure they’d normally allow that, but he didn’t seem to mind. Eventually they headed off, leaving me to my thoughts—mainly about my colleague’s nervous disposition when flying and how he might perform on stage.
About ten minutes had passed since my encounter with the beagle and his handler.
The friendly dog changes his mind
The nudge was at my backside. I thought it was a passenger passing by with a suitcase. Annoyed, I turned around to see my furry friend again. Except he was now barking at me, rounding me and still nudging my backside. Next, I was surrounded by five border officials and asked where my baggage is. I said I hadn’t found it yet and then I hear “Rob…our bags are here!”
My colleague seemed oblivious to my new situation. I was told to select my luggage and was then led to another more private area of the airport. I did not get a chance to tell my colleague that I was going elsewhere.
The Canadian border guy was hostile. I bristled. Air travel is stressful enough without this. He was rude and arrogant and slammed me with questions. I tried to explain that I was in Canada on business, that I was a Cruise Director bringing a new Cruise Director to a ship. This official just retorted that they have found lawyers and doctors carrying drugs.
The weird thing about being in the official spotlight is that your mind works overtime. As the saga continued and they swabbed my bags and my person, I rewound the events at Seattle airport that had seemed innocuous but a little strange as well.
My mind started playing tricks on me
Rewind four hours and I was standing outside the terminal at Seattle talking to an attractive off-duty cabin crew member who seemed very friendly and chatty. We spoke about life and what she and I did as careers.
It was a great conversation. The strange part came with the goodbye. She suddenly said she had to go, hugged me, kissed me on the cheek and patted my ass. Odd…considering that I had known her for about 20 minutes.
Now, as I stood at customs in Canada, under the accusatory glare of a rude border guard, I could feel my heart rate start to quicken. Did she slip something in my back pocket? Did she distract me enough to have an accomplice plant something in my bag?
My cool demeanour was unraveling inside. I started to feel anxious. Gone was the indignant confidence I had felt before those thoughts arrived. Meanwhile, I watched as they went through my luggage and computer bag. The guard looked annoyed that he had found nothing suspicious. But he was not done.
“I am going to take your laptop and x-ray it and I will swab the keys. If you have used a drug within the last 6 months, we’ll pick it up”.
The officer’s statement is recalled dialogue from this encounter, not a verified description of what testing can detect.
Finally, an answer
I shrugged with pretend nonchalance. “Sure…whatever.”
My response further irritated this guy. “If we find any traces of narcotics you’re in deep shit” The thin veil of semi-professionalism had obviously sapped from him.
He came back and thrust my laptop at me.
“All OK?” I asked. “Can I go?”
He turned his back. His colleague answered the affirmative. I was free to go. End of the saga.
The relief behind the airport story
The cool Vancouver air was resuscitating. I enjoyed a sense of freedom I’d never appreciated before. It was elation, really. The threat of what had just happened had heightened my sense of vulnerability. How easy can it be to get into trouble?
Very easy. I shuddered to think what might have happened if I’d been duped and distracted by a pretty face and had unknowingly carried narcotics. My career could have been over. Prison entered my imagination too. In those anxious moments, the whole life I knew seemed at risk. Two simple mistakes could have led to a world of pain. Travel—and air travel particularly—can bring unexpected complications.
I found the freshman CD on board the vessel by the time I arrived at the port. He’d made it OK. I felt annoyed with myself for failing to bring him successfully to the ship and show him around. But that was heaps better than being shown around a prison, I guess.
What air travel stories leave you with
Some air travel stories end with a punchline. This one left me with two reminders:
1. Never approach, pet or distract a working detection dog without its handler’s permission. I had been allowed to pet the beagle, but it taught me to be more mindful around working animals.
2. Never become so distracted by an interesting stranger that you lose track of your belongings. Keep your bags in sight and under your control. My suspicions about the stranger in Seattle were just that—suspicions. I never found any evidence that she’d done anything wrong.
Observe those tips and, with luck, you won’t have to endure the air-travel saga I did.
What about you? Has a routine journey ever turned into an airport adventure? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.
Related reading: Fear of Flying · Travel Logistics & Transit.
For the practical details: the Canada Border Services Agency explains its detector-dog programme and what secondary inspections involve. These explain the current process; they do not establish why I was selected that day.