Travelling with your pet... Part 1 (By plane to a different country)

In this post I want to explain the steps we went through and make a list at the end of things you need to keep in mind and get done when you are travelling with your pet to another country.

Let me start by saying this: for any trip under 6 months, especially if it requires flying I would not consider taking my dog on a plane with me if the destination is outside the country or EU. Now why would I rather leave my dog back home in the hands of friends, relatives or a temporary kennel is due to the medical requirements, paperwork, medication, transportation requirements, costs, jetlag and physical and mental exhaust the trip can have on your pet.

In June 2013, my husband and I moved from Canada to Austria. We had 90kg luggage spread over 4 suitcases, by far not enough weight considering all the things we had acquired over the last 3 years we had spent in Toronto. And then there was the matter of our dog. Our 9 Kilo light, 21 inch tall, beautiful, 8 month old puppy Odette. We were lucky as for travelling from Canada to mainland Europe is relatively simple (England, for example, would have been a lot more complicated).

Let's start with the paperwork and medical requirements. Researching this on the Internet was very complicated as each resource seemed to be talking about slightly different requirements. We ended up contacting the Canadian Food Inspection Agency directly since they were mentioned everywhere, and just asking them about the exact requirements. They emailed us back quite quickly with the paperwork we had to get filled out. It was a 5 page document that we had to take to a vet along with the pup. He did a quick checkup, signed the paperwork and that was done. Of course he charged us for this, but we will closely examine this in the cost section. We did have one problem when we took the filled out paperwork to the CFIA, we had printed the sheets on separate papers, however upon getting there we were told they had to be printed back-to-back... I was pissed off that no one had told us about this before, but once again we were lucky as our document had 5 pages, the last page (with the signature of the vet) we kept and the other 4 we printed back-to-back and I filled them out right there again. The lady helping us was very nice and calm even though I was ready to yell all kinds of insults (which I am sorry for, but come on, we prepared and re-read the requirements over and over again and it didn't say anything about printing requirements).

As for medication we were on the one hand lucky because as we found out afterwards, Odette wouldn't have needed anything. The doctor gave her a deworming medication because the phrasing on the papers can be highly confusing - deworming medication are needed for the UK, not for most mainland-Europe countries.

Transportation requirements for a long flight like this were again a bit more confusing. Most airlines only allow 1 dog per luggage compartment and 1 dog per cabin. Odette of course was too tall to go into the cabin so we had to put her in the luggage compartment. Air Canada does not allow dogs in the luggage compartment from Mai-September because of possibility of overheating, so we had to fly Lufthansa. The requirements for her kennel were simple, it has to have openings on 3 sides, for ventilation), and you have to supply water for your pet. We put in a big bottle with a nozzle, kind of like rabbits, hamsters and guineapigs often have. Furthermore the animal needs to be able to stand and turn around inside the kennel.

Cost was a very important matter. The vet appointment cost us $200 (checkup and filling out of the paperwork), the kennel we were lucky to get for free (otherwise you are looking at another $200 if you need to buy one that size), the plane ticket cost us $400 (due to her size, the next kennel size down would have only been $200). The CFIA confirmation of the documents cost another $20. And it costs us a lot of time to get everything done. Booking the dogs ticket needed to be confirmed, the driving around from vet to CFIA, bringing the dog and the huge kennel to the airport, with an animal you need to be there 3-4 hours before take-off... Consider all this.

Jetlag and physical and mental exhaust on the pet - Odette was very exhausted after this trip. She had soiled her cage, had diarrhea that lasted for a week (and horrible diarrhea that she was not able to control), had trouble eating and drinking and for a day or so whined a lot when she wasn't near people (maybe she felt a bit abandoned, in the plane, I do not know). And this is the reason I would not consider taking her on a plane trip if it is anything down from 6 months - it's just too hard on her, and I think most dogs. The luggage compartment must be very loud, she does not know what's going on and despite the fact that we gave her something to calm her, she was quite distressed.

So to sum up these points for you:
- Contact the agency that needs to sign off the paperwork directly and ask them for requirements and the paperwork. All the blogs and people giving advice can differ quite a bit, and every country is different. I also would not recommend using services that do all this for you, for about $30-50 because I do not believe it is worth it (unless you are in a country where you do not speak the language).
- Consider the cost. All in all, Odette's journey cost us $620 (could have been nearly $1000 had we not had the kennel yet). Also consider the time-requirement and driving around you'll have to do !
- Make sure the transportation requirements (set by the airline and IATA) are met.
- When you book your ticket, immediately book your animal too - if there is already a dog booked on said flight, they probably wont allow a second one so you'll need to change it. The longer you wait, the more complicated this gets.
- Make sure you know the size of the kennel, weight of the dog, and cost of the ticket.
- Plan for enough time to the airport.
- Consider something to calm the dog (herbal or not, something is better than nothing).
- Consider the mental and physical effects of this trip. If your dog already has separation anxiety, a journey like this could just aggravate it.
- Last but not least, get your dog used to the kennel before you have to fly. The day of, your are excited and that rubs off on your dog, trying to get him/her into a kennel it's never been in before (especially if it is not a fan of confinement) can be very hard and mean added stress to him/her.

Hope this helped. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Life with a sick dog... Part 5

The eyes have been fixed. Well at least as much as it was possible. On November 27th Odette went back to the clinic in Vienna for the eye surgery. There were a few more issues than expected. They were not able to insert the artificial lenses, in one eye the cornea had started coming off, which made surgery even more complicated. We told them to go ahead with it anyway.

She had to stay at the clinic for a bit, but a couple of days later we got to pick her up. She looked so tired, kept squinting because the light must have been irritating for her renewed sight. Sam sat with her in the back of the car on the ride home and all she did was whine the entire time, just like the time after her liver shunt surgery.

For about a week she got two kinds of pills and three different eye drops (also different ones per eye). Then she got the pills and two different eye drops, one of them only every second day. It is quite complicated to keep up with all this medication and give it to her properly, but it is just something you have to commit to.

She was wearing the cone for nearly an entire month and she had check-up appointments on Friday, December 13 and on the 27th, and will have another one in late January.

For now she is also still on the special food, which she will stay on for a little bit longer. After we arrived back in Austria on January 15, we took her to the vet for yet another blood-test to see how her liver is doing: Her ALT was still a bit high at 191 (normal range is 10-100, last test it was 318), but according to the vet the ALT takes a while to go down, so those high results are all right. Her ALKP however was FINALLY normal at 151 (normal is 23-212, last test it was 253). The vet suggested we still keep her on the special diet, but I am feeding her a little bit of normal stuff too, to get her used to it slowly. Once the current bag of special dog food is empty (which will probably be another month or two) I will have a final blood test done to see the results again. Once it is down to normal (if it actually will go to complete normal - fingers crossed), I will start cooking my own dog food and treats again and I will make sure to post them on here once again - I cannot wait !!

So overall, it seems like this crazy, unwanted adventure is coming to an end, and I am so glad about it. We have to make another check-up appointment in Vienna for her eyes, but they look really good. And her liver results look better than we had expected or anticipated after the surgery.

I just hope that from now on she will live a long and healthy life, considering how much she's been through.