Travelling with pets | Debbie's Caribbean Resort Reviews Forums

Since we sort of dragged the thread on bringing pets to Cuba off topic, I thought I might open another one here. I’d be interested to know what experiences others have had travelling with animals. My experience is mostly with dogs, although I have occasionally had to deal with cats (not fun!) and of course horses over the years. In addition, I know several dog breeders who show and ship puppies and adult dogs, and I’m related to a vet who also shows her own dogs and cares for other dogs that are/have been travelling. In addition, two of my friends travel to the States every year with dogs accompanying them, but they travel with RVs, so they have their "home away from home", an ideal way to travel with pets, IMO. Lots and lots of anecdotes, so I’ll just kick this off with one. When I was a child, most of the time we didn’t bring our family dog on vacation. Back in the day, few hotels would allow dogs as guests. Initially we left him with relatives, but changed our policy after leaving him with my Uncle. Our dog was an extremely well trained Sheltie, so we felt safe leaving him in the care of someone who also had a family dog. But something untoward occurred…….we never did find out exactly what……and the dog bolted and could not be found. A week later, we returned from our trip to discover our dog had been lost. My Mom and I hurried to my Uncle’s neighbourhood, walked down the street, and called our dog’s name. He appeared almost immediately, excited and happy to see us. A woman came out of her house and told us our dog had been having his meals with her dog all week, but they couldn’t get a hand on him to check the tag on his collar. All’s well that ends well, but we learned a lesson and left him in a proper kennel when we travelled thereafter.

You might say we should have taken him with us, but that wasn’t possible. And the situation with my uncle could easily have been duplicated had we left the dog in the care of someone at a bed & breakfast, as was suggested on the other thread. A dog lost in unfamiliar territory is at great risk of being hit by a car, stolen, or being picked up as a stray. We were extremely fortunate to recover our dog without incident.

We had to put our dog down due to cancer a month ago and my wife is very reluctant to get another, mostly due to the difficulty in finding someone who will care for it while we’re away. It’s a really tough call.Cats on the other hand will go for a week without much trouble if you leave out lots of food, water and a few trays of litter. Cats are just not the same though.

Best way to travel I ever saw was a lady that had her small dog inside her purse on an overseas flight. No idea how she got that through security.

We had to put our dog down due to cancer a month ago and my wife is very reluctant to get another, mostly due to the difficulty in finding someone who will care for it while we’re away. I hear you! After we lost our last dog we had decided not to get another for the same reason. Alas, a breeder I know emailed me to tell me of a "Basenji looking for a good home". The rest is history.(who could resist a face like this?)

Thanks for the links. Unfortunately a couple of them don’t work for me. The flying tips are useful. I would also suggest that when one is on unfamiliar territory (or even at home!) a tag with photo i.d. and your contact info is a good thing for your dog to wear. This is what separates the "fur citizens" from the strays, in Havana:

Having something like this on your dog if he gets lost could make all the difference.

Sorry to hear for your losses eeeefarm and dax. Also, to anyone else who has lost a pet. We went through a loss of a pet dog a few years ago. Sometimes it was difficult to find someone to take care of the dog while on vacation. Someone had to either stay at the house or come over on a daily basis, or more, for the "routine"Cats are a bit more easier, but would never leave them for a whole week without someone coming by to check on them at least once or twice.

Traveling with a pet to another country is something we just wouldn’t really want to do. Just too many things involving the safe being and health of the animal and the ease to travel in freedom. It would be easier for the traveler and quite possibly for the animal too, for the pet to stay at home in familiar surroundings. If the travel is for a weekend trip to the cottage, then sure.

Some people wonder what the fuss is about when a pet (dog) dies. I think those who’ve had a pet say they are not just a pet but a member of the family, as do we. We had to have "Harley" put down 5 years ago but still have "granddogs" in the family. BUT… for the years we had her we drew the line when going on vacation ! Either one of our kids would look after her or she would go to a good kennel for the time we were away. We go on vacation for us to get away from the daily things at home. Selfish ?? Maybe but that’s the way it is. As much as we loved our dog – vacation was for us !! Just my opinion and as I’ve said many times before, each to their own!

Gee, when I started this thread I didn’t expect it to morf into travels to the Rainbow Bridge! I think we all miss our pets terribly when we lose them. Friends and relatives mostly don’t live with us, our pets do. When they are gone there is a huge hole left behind. That feeling of "oh, I have to take the dog out now" and then the sinking feeling when you remember there’s no dog. We went through that for six months, and when I got that email we were vulnerable, no question. Nothing can replace the previous pet, but a new one sure does ease the pain. As far as taking pets travelling, I have done it both locally and one time for over a week to the east coast. I have to say, having a pet along changes the whole focus of the vacation. It becomes all about when the pet needs to go out, be fed, where it sleeps (in bed with us!), and where to leave it if you want to go get a restaurant meal. In the car doesn’t work in hot or cold weather. Hotel rooms are problematic. Relatives can only put up with so much.

Our previous dog came to us at 2 years old after he had eaten the seats out of his owner’s car when left alone in a strange place. He was promptly returned to his breeder, who go in touch with a breeder I had bought a dog from, who phoned me. At the time I was down to one dog from two, and had my arm twisted to say yes. (if that sounds a bit like how I got the current dog, the main difference was that he was 3 and hadn’t destroyed anything.) ;D

	OK what’s the secret to posting pics on this site? You need to have the pictures on line somewhere……use one of the free sites like photobucket for example…….and then you hot link them to here using the image code.

As much fun as I think it would be to travel with my dog, I know as previously stated it would become all about when she needs to go out, where to keep her when I do an excursion, supper out etc.But finding a family member/friend to take care of them isn’t always ideal or easy. And finding a kennel that you are happy with and that you know your dog enjoys is tough. Not to mention the cost. It usually adds almost 50% to the cost of my trips south..lol

But can’t imagine not having her around….and when the day comes that she is no longer here, it is going to be like losing a family member! I lost my previous 2 little guys in a divorce, so know firsthand what it can feel like.

vagabond Guest

OK what’s the secret to posting pics on this site?
You need to have the pictures on line somewhere……use one of the free sites like photobucket for example…….and then you hot link them to here using the image code. Thanks for the reply but it’s all Greek to me.

I have been on a couple of other sites that figure everyone is a ‘puter expert, my pics are on Picasa gues that’s where they’ll stay.

You need to have the pictures on line somewhere……use one of the free sites like photobucket for example…….and then you hot link them to here using the image code. Thanks for the reply but it’s all Greek to me.

I have been on a couple of other sites that figure everyone is a ‘puter expert, my pics are on Picasa gues that’s where they’ll stay.

You should be able to hot link to them easily. If Picasa supplies an image code, as Photobucket does, just copy and paste it into your post. If it doesn’t, you can click the picture icon above (in the add tags box above your message box when you compose), third one in, second row), and insert the location of the image between the IMG] [/IMG] boxes. I didn’t close the first bracket so that you can see the code. (use the preview function until you get it right!) And voila!

I just checked out Picassa. Here is the method, according to their help section:

Follow these steps to embed a Picasa Web Albums image in your site. On the My Photos page, click your album. Click the photo you’d like to embed. Click Link to this Photo on the right sidebar. Set the following preferences: Select your preferred image size. Select ‘Hide album link’ to remove a link to the containing album, which is displayed by default with the image. Select ‘Image only (no link)’ to get the image URL by itself, with no link back to Picasa Web Albums. Copy the HTML (Ctrl-C) in the ‘Embed image’ field on the right-hand side.

Paste the HTML (Ctrl-V) in the source code for your site.

Hopefully that will work. Try it and see!

vagabond Guest	Thanks for taking the time to post the detailed instructions, it’s appreciated.

Just to bring this off topic thread back on topic, here’s another little story from back in the day. When I was young and foolish, I took a day trip up to cottage country from Toronto with one of my girlfriends. We brought our dogs along, in the back seat of her VW bug. They were surprisingly well behaved, considering that they hadn’t met before that day. She had a female Boxer, I had a female Basenji, both fairly young dogs. We had a fun afternoon at the lake, went swimming, and enticed both dogs to join us, although neither had experience with deep water before. But it was a golden day, everything went well, and we returned to Toronto tired but happy.However, the most memorable aspect of that little trip was the reason we ran with the windows wide open the whole time. Boxers are known for flatulence, and hers was no exception. One after the other, the whole time we drove! Good thing it was summer and we could leave the windows down! ;DThis is Val, my Basenji, back in the late 60’s

Not fit for man nor beast. This should sell some Cuban vacations:
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[/a]I like this better:

PB-CL 2012 by SpunkyNB, on FlickrFlickr works for me. Thanks everybody.

I’ll work on Picasa..

I wanted to try an experiment to see if I could put up one of the pictures I have on Dos Centavos.To stay on topic, though, it should be a pet. These are the only pets we have these days, and they are almost impossible to travel with.

(And it actually worked. I had to make more than one attempt, though.)

These are the only pets we have these days, and they are almost impossible to travel with. Just stick them in a plastic bag with water. ;D (might be a problem getting through security, though, unless they are tiny!)

Nice picture!

	The size these fish are, I would need to pay extra for overweight luggage, even if there was a way to take them in the checked baggage. In the carry on, I don’t think they would allow me to take that much liquid through. One of these fish in 100 ml of water would truly be a fish out of water.

	I saw that link today on TA. Our daughter is not fond of screaming kids when she flies and as she frequently uses Westjet, thought I would share the link with her.

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