The BBs

Can anyone offer some advice please?

We have a flat coat retriever that we want to bring to Australia, hopefully this September, and wondered if anyone could recommend a good pet shipping company for her to travel with?

We read several posts here on BE about this subject but it was quite a long time ago thus we are not quite up to date with more recent experiences on this matter.

In case you are not familiar with flat coat retrievers, they are a bit like a Red Setter in looks and size so a fairly large dog requiring a bit of extra crate space!

We are moving from Devon to Brisbane and are aware that our dog will need to be kennels in Sydney for 30 days so any other useful advice/experience on how to then ship her from Sydney to Brisbane (other than by road) also greatly appreciated.

Thank you all for your kind help and advice.

The BBs

Bermudashorts

There are three pet shippers that come up time and time again; Airpets, Petair and Golden Arrow.

I haven't seen bad reports about any of them. I have used Airpets when we moved to Bermuda and back and have just moved my cats to Australia with Golden Arrow. Happy with both services.

My cats are in Sydney quarantine at the moment but we are staying in the area, I have seen many people just put their pets on a domestic flight if they have further to go. Not sure how you go about booking it though but I am sure somebody will come along soon that does.

Much of the transportation cost is based on size of container. I had two cats so I presume they had a reasonably large volume between them. The charge for moving, licence and final vet checks was about £1,700.

The BBs

Hello Bermudashorts,

Thank you so much for your kind help and feedback, much appreciated. I shall contact these companies here in the UK for further details.

In the mean time if anyone else has any experience on re-shipping their pets from Sydney to Brisbane I would be eternally grateful. Thank you.

Best regards,

The BBs.

mark1963

Hi BB

I am taking my Springer to sydney from heathrow in August.

I am using a company called Air supply shipping they are doing the actual shipping and the final vet certificate, There cost is £1,052.......i have organised the rest of the paperwork etc.

I had other quote from Pet Air £1,748 and Pet Exporters £1.385. for the same service.

They have been very helpful to date, I will make a further comment on this site once she has arrived in Sydney to let all know how well they did there job.

I figure that they should all be following the same guide lines and procedures !!

regards,
Mark

louH

Hi

I have not shipped a dog from the UK however I have shipped a dog within Australia and used jetpets without any problems. Alternatively you could fly down to Sydney yourself for the day and bring your dog back on Quantas - for a dog of your size this may work out cheaper if you can get a mid week flight.

Good luck and I hope if goes well

The BBs

Hello Mark,

Great to hear from you. I hope it all goes well with your springer and with Air Supply shipping company and I shall look forward to any feedback you may have on that in due course if you don't mind?

We hope to fly out around mid September if the sale of our house finally proceeds as hoped so we may ship our dog around the end of August. Not sure when in August you are shipping your springer but it may well be that we will need to make a decision before we get your feedback!

The prices are quite different between these companies aren't they? But I do hope that their service is a good one and that they will look after your springer well. It is such a worry sending the poor little buggers in a crate on their own but there's little other choice for them unfortunately.

Like you, I hope these companies all follow standard guide lines and that their interests aren't just purely financial!

Good luck Mark and do please keep us posted here on BE with your feedback. It may also be of benefit to others in a similar predicament.

Very best regards,

The BBs.

The BBs

Hello louH,

Great stuff thank you very much for your sterling advice. We do have friends in Sydney so we might be able to combine it with a little visit and a short stay prior to returning back to Brisbane.

Thank you once again for your kind advice and good wishes.

The BBs.

mark1963

Hi BBs,

Just a quick note...Im sure you will be aware by now that you need to do all blood tests and injections 28 days before the dog leaves the country.
And they need to have all UK anual injections etc up to date before hand.

All the best
Mark

The BBs

Hello Mark,

Good thought thank you so much for that. We spoke with our vet about this last summer (we had almost sold our house then but it all fell through at the last minute) and we were aware of the fact that she needed the blood tests etc 28 days before. She is always up to date with her vaccinations and kennel sprays etc as we occasionally have to leave her at the local kennels when we have to travel around so she is ok with that.

As a matter of possible interest to others shipping dogs from the UK, it is very likely that your dog would have had a jab against leptospirosis (disease carried in rat's urine - more common if you live on or near a farm) and the jab's antibodies could well give the impression that your dog has this disease when the bloods are taken, if the jab was given within the previous 6 months I believe! If you are thinking of shipping your dog within that time, seek advice from your vet about this as it could well become a problem! Well...... according to our vet anyway!

Thanks again Mark for your superb input.

Very best regards,

The BBs.