Dogs Traveling

Dogs are traveling around the world.

I'd like to start this post with optimism - every day lots of dogs travel from one country to another. JFK airport in NY receives more than 70,000 pets every year. People who take their pets for a vacation, handlers who take dogs for dog shows abroad, breeders who bring their puppies to their new owners to different countries - normally without any troubles.

Troubles start when dogs are not accompanied by the owner or well known person. This one of the reasons why some people are afraid to buy a puppy abroad or why some breeders don't sell their puppies to another country.

As I mentioned before I'm a breeder of labradors and I was selling my puppies to different countries. I was always lucky with it : ) I had an opportunity to send a puppy with one of my friends (now he lives happily with it's family not far from NY).  Another time I delivered a puppy myself to Portugal - no problems. In May I was sure that it won't be a problem to deliver my 2 labradors to USA. And now, when our dogs are ready to fly... troubles began : (

I had no friends with an American Visa to fly here - ok. Then someone recommended a person who promises "individual pet delivery". To get a delivery with an accompaniment is considered to be much better. It's supposed that a person has only your pets, gives them an attention and keep them healthy, happy and clean. Often, when I was flying to US before I took a puppy/puppies of French Bulldogs- so, you can see at the pictures how comfortable it was for them.... And I was looking for the same safe and comfortable delivery of my own dogs. Meanwhile, the person who was recommended for the delivery stopped answering my questions. And then news...

Two Russian pet couriers were stopped at customs at JFK! They had 15 animals (dogs and kittens)!!!! It turned out that these couriers was the one that was recommended to me! Her names's Luba Kari. The owners of these poor pets were sure that they pay exactly for an individual delivery, it costed 800-1200$... When the breeders were bringing their puppy/kitten at the airport in Moscow Luba was meeting them with one cage for this pet, telling that she's sitting at business lounge...

7 pets for one person to deliver finally... Unbelievable!!! What were these two "courriers" thinking about? Everyone in this business knows that it's impossible to bring in any country so many pets as non-commercial purpose. Two - ok, maybe 3... But 15 for two couriers?! How greedy for money they should be... And I really sorry about the owners and breeders, but most of all about these poor, innocent puppies and kittens. So, couriers are departed... I hope their business about pet delivery will be crushed- this accident has been discussing widely. More than 10 pets are still at the airport... They owners (people who ordered the delivery to different states) must come there and pay 1-1,5K for taxes... It can be more than a price for high-breed puppy, especially keeping in mind the necessarily to fly to NY from another State. So.. the destiny of these poor pets isn't clear..

But it's absolutely clear, that after this accident all the travelers with pets have troubles with custom service in NY airport... Even those, who travel with their own dog, have lots of questions now. I know about a few more couriers who were departed even with 2 dogs. It makes the delivery our 2 labradors with any friend really hard..

So, we decided to avoid this risk and to organize our dogs' trip by cargo. It's much cheaper, the air-company is responsible for our pets by the contract. We still need to figure out many details, and we're dealing with it now. So, I will write about how to deliver your pets from Russia to US Florida - prices of different delivery methods and all about the adventures of our labradors during the voyage in my next post. Wishing the best, Taya