Hmm, perhaps you should put their needs ahead of yours. Find a good home for them, the stress of the journey will probably kill them.

We have two guinea pigs. If we move out of state, then of course, they'd be coming with us, but overseas, no, they'd have to be re-homed. I think the stress of the trip would not do them any favors and as cavy owners know, once they get stressed and stop eating, huge vet bills follow afterwards.

I heard there's a number of guinea pig rescues in Canada. I know it's really tough to think about re-homing the ones you have now, but you could adopt others who are desperate for a new home once you settle in. One of ours is a rescue pig. Someone thought of him as disposable and left him in a box in the park before we adopted him. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Really Aviator....don't you know anything about Canada? We aren't allowed to bring anything in in pastry

We left behind (re-homed ) a tortoise I had owned since I was six years old, so the guy was at least 35 years old at the time. Hard decision but the decision was based on having him hibernate for 6 months of the year.

My girlfriend complains when I carry the hamster around in my pocket. He doesn't seem to worry too much.

Personally, while I can sympathise with wanting to bring pets to Canada, from what I've read on the subject the risk of small animals dying on the trip seems too high. In that position, I'd have found a good home for them to live out the rest of their lives in England.

Last weekend we shipped our two guinea pigs from Heathrow to Halifax. They had a two hour journey before, and another after the flight. They were absolutely fine (they're 4.5 years old!)

You'll hear a lot of 'the stress will kill them' - complete nonsense. If they're in good health, and shipped correctly, they'll be fine. Most of the journey they're just in a nice dark crate, hardly stressful for a pig.

Don't bother calling the airlines, they don't have any idea. You'll need to use a pet shipping company. I'm happy to tell you who we used in a PM.

We had quotes ranging from £1800 to £300. Total cost was around £550 all in.

As TS00 said, we shipped our 2 guinea pigs last week and they took the whole thing in their stride and are happily settled in Canada now.

A few things that made the whole thing easier were:

• Sorting everything out with the vet early. Although you need the cert. to be issued less than 10 days before flying I booked a preliminary checkup earlier to ensure there weren't any nasty surprises after I'd booked the flight.
• Getting them used to their travelling container. I had their shipping box ready beforehand and they went in it twice a week during cleanouts. The last week they spent at least an hour in it every day. I think this contributed to them feeling safe during transit.
• Traveling them together. Our pigs are brothers and have always been together so travelling them in the same box was a must.

People assume that small animals are going to find travel very stressful, but I think they actually find it easier some cats and dogs. Their travel box is dark and familiar and they basically settle down and wait.

Staff at both airports were very good and ensured that they had filled water bottles at all times when they weren't in the air.

If only we'd thought of just buying new ones as suggested in this thread, we could have saved a fortune. Should have checked the foum first...

I kind of get it with kids having pets like guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils and the like (the life span kind of works with their attention span), but it's sort of weird when adults have them don't you think?...

Hamsters are a lot less hassle to look after than a cat or dog. Except that he's currently playing bowling ball with my coffee mug... he can get up a lot of speed rolling around the floor in his ball.

But yeah, having to replace them every couple of years kind of sucks.

TS00 and kasoogi - thank you so much for your advice, based on your real experience - not just opinions about our family's pets!