Hello friends.

My wife and myself are hoping to fly out to Canada to begin our permanent residency in the next few weeks however we are thinking of calling the whole thing of and staying in Scotland due to the fear of putting our fur baby (Samoyed) in the hold of the aircraft (she is to big for the cabin).

Does anyone have experience of making the move with a doggy and how were they when they arrived?

We did book the boat to sail across however all sailings are suspended and we need to be in Canada by Feb.

Thanks and stay safe

You won't be able to fly into Canada for the next few weeks unless you come under the exemptions - have you already 'landed' to secure your PR status? .
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...pplicants.html
Tons of threads on BE about the subject of flying with dogs / pets - here's the results of a search for you, to save you searching through.. (there's been a couple of threads in the last few days that might be helpful too )

Hello and thanks for the reply,

yes we have already landed previously to start the visa, thus we need to enter in Feb to ensure we meet the residency requirements.

Thanks for the links.

Tons of threads if you search the forum. Problems are few, it seems the general consensus is that it’s far worse for the owners left worrying than it is for the dogs!

Not sure how much time you’ve got, but try and give yourself as much leeway as possible so you don’t end up being ‘landlocked’ for the next 2 years. It would be awful to not be able to leave Canada for any reason, including a family emergency back in the UK.

Good luck.

Our dog is quite a “stressy” dog when it comes to noise and too much going on so we were really worried about flying him over thinking we were going to traumatise him. However, he was absolutely fine and came bounding out of his cage to greet us despite being caged for a total of 15 hours from drop off at Heathrow to pick up at Toronto Pearson. We definitely were more stressed than he was that day!

Sames as the post above - I was worried sick about our dog but when he arrived he was absolutely fine, just needed to pee really badly. When we arrived at our new home he happily went back into his crate to lie down, clearly not traumatised at all.
I figure they have absolutely no idea they have been on an aeroplane, they dont even know what they are, they havent had a window to realise how high up they are, and people say that dogs cant judge time either, so i honestly think they are none the wiser when they come out the other end! DOnt worry about it, your dog will be fine

We moved to Canada in 2018 with our 3 dogs.
You can find details here on the Diary of our move.