Traveling Abroad with a Dog

Tips for Flying with Your Pet Overseas

Apr 17, 2009 Venice Kichura

Although you can't imagine taking any trip without your dog, flying overseas isn't as easy as traveling across a state in a car. Here are some tips.

Although traveling with your dog overseas isn’t impossible, it’s challenging. If you plan to bring along your pet when you travel abroad it will take organization and much preparation before leaving.

Before Leaving Home

• Check with your overseas country’s embassy. Before deciding to take your dog, you need to first make sure you’re able to do. Each country has its own rules, requirements and restrictions regarding bringing pets into their borders. Also, different countries have various quarantine and shots requirements.

• Ensure your dog is old enough to fly. It’s required by federal regulation that puppies should be eight weeks old, as well as weaned, for at least five days prior to traveling.

• Micro-chip your dog. To prevent the heartache of your dog getting lost, you should micro-chip your dog. About as small as a grain of rice, a micro-chip is a tiny computer chip inside a glass that’s made compatible with living tissue. Similar to getting a shot, the micro-chip is implanted under the dog’s skin between his shoulder blades with a special syringe and needle and is virtually painless. For details on micro-chipping, check with your vet.

• Get your pet medically prepared. Ensure your dog is updated with all needed shots and vaccinations and then secure all medical records in a special folder. Do not tranquilize your dog for the trip. Not only does tranquilization cause respiratory and cardio-vascular problems, but it’s not advised by either the American Veterinary Association or the American Humane Association.

• Check airline cargo restrictions. Call your airline and ask about any restrictions that would prevent you from bringing your dog on-board with you. For example, many airlines don’t allow dogs with pug noses such as boxers or bulldogs to travel in hot months as the humidity creates a threat to their breathing.

• Determine if your overseas country is in a crisis. If you plan to visit a country where you’ll be forced to evacuate because of a war or other crisis, it’s likely you won’t be able to remove your pet. In other words you would need to make alternate plans to get your dog out of a troubled region. Other than service dogs, most areas don’t allow for dog evacuations.

• Consider a pet-friendly airline. DogFriendly.com supports airlines allowing medium to large-sized dogs that are well-behaved to travel on airlines in the cabin sections with people, rather than with cargo.

• Visit PetTransporter.com for tips on preparing air travel. Or, you can call them toll free (800) 264-1287.

Although you probably won’t be permitted to personally check on your dog, ask a flight attendant to check for you. If your pet is small and you can take a dog carrier on-board, keep your dog in the carrier during a layover as you don’t want to run the risk of your pet getting loose in a strange airport. Feed your dog and give it water while on a long flight, either sticking food through a take-on board carrier or have a flight attendant do it. Limit the amount of food because your dog can easily get sick in the carrier, creating an even worse situation.

Most of all make sure it’s the right decision to bring along your dog. If for any reason you feel it’s not for either your pet’s best interest or yours, don’t hesitate to make arrangements to leave Fido at home.

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