その上犬の飛行機代と動物をイギリスに輸入するための犬の健康証明書費用が２匹で３０００ドル以上かかりました。高すぎっ。片道だし。
What made our trip to UK so much difficult than a simple flight is our dogs. Yes, we brought our dogs with us. Very, VERY, costly, and cumbersome endeavor.
First off, we needed to get a direct flight to England. Not that it was a requirement, but we wanted the shortest flight possible for the dogs who had to stay in the crate in a cargo for the duration of the flight (plus few hours before and after). So we were limited to the direct flight.
Then we were limited to American airlines (because the company is paying for the airfare). Which left us with either United or American. Then United cancelled a direct flight from our airport, and American said they don’t ship pets.
At this point, we even considered taking a Queen Elizabeth cruise to England but because of the pet health certificate and tapeworm treatment timing (explained further below), we had to ditch that idea.
The closest direct flight was from Houston, and we decided to drive 15 hours to Houston.
Before we started our journey, we first needed the pet health certificate in order for the dogs to go through the UK custom. It was good that we microchipped our little one a few years ago (our Blue Healer was microchipped when we adopted her). UK requires the dogs to be microchipped before rabies vaccines.
The health certificate had to be completed within 10 days of entering into the UK, and it had to be endorsed by USDA vet. Luckily, our vet was very familiar with the process. We went in for the check-up 1 week before our landing to UK. The health certificate was then over-nighted to New Mexico State Vet to be endorsed, then over-nighted back to our vet. Then we went back to our vet for tapeworm treatment that needed to be done within 5 days of entering into the UK. The vet added the tapeworm treatment on the certificate, then we received the health certificate, signed and embossed.
The other thing we had to do was to contact a company called PBS in the UK, which was a vendor for United’s pet shipping. For some reason, the UK requires the pet customs process to be handled exclusively by the authorized broker. So we had to give them the flight information and the customs documents prior to our arrival to the UK.
On Saturday, January 28, we drove my car to pick up a rental car. We had to get a minivan to fit the 2 crates (the cargo shipping requires sturdy crate; no foldable cage is allowed). We drove back the 2 cars, dropped off my car at our storage on the way back, went back to the apartment, loaded the dogs, the crates, and our suitcases, then drove the rental car and the MOTH’s truck to the storage to store MOTH’s truck, then off to Houston at 1:40 p.m.
We entered and crossed New Mexico fairly quickly, then entered into Texas… Texas is big. I mean, big. When we crossed Texas westward 10 years ago, it took us an entire day, and now we were doing it the other direction. We took a re-fuel/potty stop a couple of times, took a nap for a couple of hours past midnight (there is no drive-sharing in our household, by the way. It is strictly limited to MOTH driving all the way), drove on for several more hours, took another nap/potty time, ate brunch and Raising Cane’s, and 22 hours after leaving town, we finally reached the United’s cargo bay where the dogs would start their journey.
They tell you to be at the cargo 3 hours before the flight and they mean that. Workers there just hang around, chat, and show no sign of efficiency. Almost as if looking at government workers. Or are they union workers. Anyway, dogs got in their respective crate and locked, and the workers spent almost an hour to process the shipment. They were all speaking in Spanish with each other and didn’t tell us what they were doing so we just had to stand around and wait, looking at the dogs locked up in the crate.
When the workers finally completed whatever needed to be done, we hurried to return the rental car, took a shuttle to the terminal, and hopped on the airplane.
Flight itself was short (less than 9 hours) and uneventful. I was worried how the dogs were coping in the cargo but soon fell asleep with a help of Benadryl.
Once we got to Heathrow, we found out that we had to drive to a different part of the airport to pick up the dogs. We took a shuttle to a rental car place, pick up a station wagon, then drove to the airport’s animal center.
For the time it took us to go through immigration and picking up the rental car, you would think by now the dogs are ready to go. Oh no, they weren’t. We had to wait for nearly 2 hours to get the dogs out. The office is behind a locked door so we didn’t even know what was going on or how long this process would take. We were just left in the dingy lobby, with CCTV camera staring at us.
Thankfully, the dogs came out alive and well. Considering the decline of our little one’s health (nothing wrong, just old age and she’s getting very feeble), I really thought she might not make it but she did. Also, the workers did feed them so they were not starving.
We loaded them in the car (I had to hold our Blue Healer on my lap because of the limited space in the station wagon) and drove to our barn. It was 11:30 a.m. on Monday, January 30 when we finally reached our destination. Phew, it was a long trip.
So for those of you who may be considering traveling to the UK with dogs, I highly recommend doing a serious cost-benefit analysis, because it is very costly and tough and stressful on dogs. Here is our break-down of the cost:
-Crates: we had to buy a smaller crate for the little one. The airline also required 2 bowls for each crate. $100-$200.
-Vet fee for the health certificate and tapeworm treatment for 2 dogs: $550 (includes overnight costs so if you are in the area where the State vet is nearby, it will be cheaper)
-Cargo waybill for 2 dogs including the customs broker fee: $2,500
This makes it about $1,500-$1,600 per dog, one way. Double the cost of human airfare (our airfare was about $1,500 per person, round-trip).
And here are the tips and thoughts on air-shipping dogs:
-Do not medicate the dogs to sedate. You would think giving a Benadryl to the dogs before the flight may make them sleep through the process. But the airline may not let you ship the dog. There was a puppy also being processed at the cargo, and the workers were very suspicious that the puppy might have been sedated, and asking the owner about it (also saying if the puppy was sedated, they wouldn’t ship it).
-Pack a portion-size dog food in a ziploc bag. The workers at the cargo taped it on the crate. United did not allow medication in the dog food so I had to take out the pills unfortunately.
-We also had our leashes taped on the crate as well. When the dogs came out of the Heathrow Animal Center, they were on the leash, out of the crate.
-No toys in the crate (not allowed).
-Pee absorbing material in the crate. Our Blue Healer was able to hold pee but our little one did pee in the crate. If your crate pad is covered with nylon or other heavy-duty material, you will need something to absorb the pee.
-Have enough time for the shipping and reclaiming process. It’s a dilemma to go to the cargo too early because then the dogs will have to stay in the crate longer, but at the same time, if they are slow to process or if there are other animals that are being processed, it may take some time and you definitely don’t want to miss your flight.
So that’s that. I’m glad that this ordeal is past. I don’t want to think about doing this again on the way back to the US… Argh.
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