Hi everyone,
Looks like we will not be going to ontario after all, it has proved to difficult mainly because we have not been able to get help from prospective employers when aproaching the HRC.
Anyway, we are having more success in Sask and we are quite happy with that. What i wanted to know was has anyone taken dogs to Sask, if so which airline did they use and where did they fly them to? It is a much longer flight and i want to make sure my dog will be ok.
Thanks Pip

We brought two cocker spaniels to Saskatoon. Well Calgary then Saskatoon to be precise we actually drive from Calgary. There was not an option to fly them in March due to the temperatures and we also felt that it wouldn;t be fair to keep them in their travelling crate for a stop. We used the services of a company called Airpets at LHR which I visited beforehand and was impressed with their knowledge, set up etc etc. They arranged for someone to collect them for us as we felt we'd be a 'bit stressed' going through the immigration process. HA! did we just not need that!! The immigration process was a breeze as every time someone looked at the form thingy and said'...so do you have meat???...' and we said no, just dogs everyone went into overdrive, it was soooo funny. I'm not kidding they were amazing in just wanting to get us through as fast as possible so I'm not sure I would spend all that money again (although it gave us a level of comfort before we left and therefore less stress). That said, there were actually only two families immigrating on our flight so things were quiet anyway.

Dopey and Stupid saw absolutely no changes as far as they were concerned (I'd like to say well-adjusted but they never were!) and their trip was rewarded with a long car drive to a kennel in Carstairs for a week then we drove them to a place in Sask...around 8 hours.

Have I forgotten anything???...just ask. Hope it helps a bit.

Airpets do indeed give the impression of being very knowledgable and professional, but so they should be for the amount of money that they charge :scared: We will be taking 3 German Shepherds to Calgary, they want £4200 whereas I have found other companies quoting between £2000 and £3000.

Thanks Smokey for your advise. We are hoping to bring our dog on the flight with us as excess baggage!!! It seemed to be the cheaper option and hopefully not too stressfull. If you hadn't gone in March would it have been possible for you to fly the dogs to Saskatchewan? I was thinking maybe we could fly on the next day . Listen to me, we are not even certain that my husband will get the job and already i am worrying about the dog! She is so much part of the family i would hate to have to leave her behind, hubby says he will find a 12 bore but he is soppier with her than the rest of us.
As long as i can get her sorted, even if its all hypothetical at the moment, then i'll worry about the kids later! Cheers.

Posidrive..yes I agree they were probably more expensive but as we were living in Morden and you can spit into the airport from Airpets and we didn't want them to have a long cross London journey. They came and picked them up a few days before we flew so we could sort out our last bits. They also told us at time of booking whether they would be on the same flight as us as they had cargo access online to see what was being shipped. I can't remember if it was a max of two crates or if it was more..sorry.

A couple of websites for you...
www.sunshadows.com was the kennel we used. It doesn't seem to have a good rep locally but I must confess we had no problems at all nor did I see any 'bad' signs. I visited another place in Sutherland and it was an indoor crate city. Any dog that barked was covered with a blanket until they shut up. She also had a rabies vacc rule that she wouldn't budge on..so much so I could have slapped her .

Another is www.colonialsquaremotel.com who offer a long term stay rate in an appartment block on Main Street (executive suites). Might help when you initially land in Saskatoon.

There has been a great deal of dog shipping threads on this forum so its worth searching it. Sorry I can't give you any links but I'm downloading Reggie Perrin and my PC's just about to expire with all the hard work :scared:

Friends of mine who emigrated from near Banbury last February flew to Calgary with their two Cairn terriers. I checked things out with Westjet for them and they said it worked perfectly. They got the dogs out of the crates at Calgary and took them for a walk and then back in the crates. I believe they flew Air Canada to Calgary. They were really pleased with the way the dogs were looked after.

The dogs are still doing fine except for an encounter with an aged porcupine - on two occasions. Then the neighbour came over and shot the porcupine. This was only after two rather expensive trips to the vet in Lumsden to get the quills cut out.

Thanks everyone for your help and advise, i feel much happier now. My dog is a rather stupid german shepherd, i think they forgot to include brains when they made her! That said i had better make sure she doesn't have an encounter with a porcupine, she would want to play with it.
So now we have just got to concentrate on getting my husband the job he is after, all is looking good at the moment so fingers crossed.
Thanks again Pip

Hi Pip,

I can't help you on the flying of your dog with regards to where you will need to fly into, but will as always try to put your mind at rest with the flight itself. It is true that they travel very well and your dog will be fine.

Very best of luck with the job - even if it is in another Province it isn't the end of the world and at least it gives you entry into Canada. Very best of luck with it all and I really hope this one works out well for you.

Well good luck. If you need any help with anything - let me know.

And while I am about it - porcupines are not a problem here. My friends have an acreage just north of Regina and ther are lots of little old disused sheds etc. The porcupine was holed up for the winter in a disused shed and the dog happened to find it. The dog probably wanted to play - the porcupine did what porcupines do!!

Thanks Liz,
So what is the Regina area like? We want somewhere with some land coz i want horses and chickens. We have been introduced to Lumsden wich sounds lovely and the school seems really good. Hum, maybe i am beginning to get excited. Oh yes, and most importantly , how expensive is the wine?!!!
Got to get my priorities right.