flying dog back to USA

Anastasia

Hello All,
Has anyone brought a dog back from India to the US? Specifically NYC? We adoped a stray here, and will be bringing her back. We currently live in Ahmedabad and am having a hard time getting any travel agent to help us with our dog's ticket. We prefer Air India - has anyone flown a pet with them and have any advice as to how to get a pet reservation so they can fly back with us?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Also, I'd love to share a photo of our beautiful girl.
Many thanks,
A

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edwardseco

There have been posts on this. Obviously documentation of a recent Rabies vaccination, etc. No quarantine except in states like Hawaii. See the link below for a start..

carlaeb

Hi Anastasia,

I have not done it yet but I will do it in a year and a half. However, I did fly my dog from the US to India and since I plan to bring her back, I looked into the process a little.

What I recommend highly is that you fly Continental. They have direct flights from Mumbai and Delhi to Newark. I don't know about other cities in India. Continental has a program called Pet Safe which is very responsible and professional with the animals. I was extremely impressed with the way they handled my dog.

More importantly for you, their Pet Safe program has a call line that is extremely helpful. I called them dozens of times when I was preparing to bring my dog to India and they were extremely helpful. They know all the ins and outs of the laws and requirements and can answer all questions you might have. They will literally walk you through the process if you ask them for help. We had originally planned to go through a pet relocaters company, but then we discovered that all these companies do is hand the pets over to Continental's Pet Safe program! So we did it ourselves with their help.

Even if you do not fly Continental, you can look at their website. It has links and info that will help you plan what you need to do for your dog. http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...s/default.aspx

Finally, I recommend that you have someone on the ground in India at whichever airport you fly out of. You will be on the plane already when they load your dog on. I'm not sure at which point the Continental people take over from the Indian airport employees, but on the Indian side, the employees are less than professional when it comes to animals. If your dog does not get on the plane for whatever reason, you will want someone on the ground waiting who can get your dog out of the hands of the airport employees. In Mumbai anyway, they will simply put your dog in a box in an unairconditioned warehouse where no one will bring your dog food or water or take him/her out to potty because all the "dog handlers" are afraid of dogs. So you want to have someone at the airport just in case something goes wrong. You will not be able to do anything from the air.

Anastasia

Thank you for your info!
Edwardo, I don't see a link?
We did contact Continental, and because of their service, we are willing to drag all our stuff to Mumbai and fly out of there, as we cannot find anyone helpful here.
Here's the situation: Continental does not have a service out of India! They say we must go through a freight service. One they recommended did not speak english and kept hanging up on us. We have made repeated calls to the US office,who refer us to emails and numbers, and have gotten emails that bounce back, and phone numbers in Mumbai that do not get answered. We finally found a cargo guy that will ship our small dog back for 45,000 ruppees! Although we have all vaccinations and a valid health certificate, they say we MUST have THEIR vet look at her for a fee of 10,500 ruppees!
We have "regular cargo" that we are shipping back - over 100 pounds of a crate, and that is 12,000 ruppees. How can a dog that weighs 14 kilos (30 pounds with crate) be almost 800 US dollars????!!
I'm so discouraged. We cannot pay these types of fees - we obviously are not the rich foreigners they get these fees from. Are we wrong - is this what it should cost?
I am beside myself - help!

carlaeb

This is alarming to me to since I will have to face all of this in a year and a half.

The pet relocation company that I spoke with had some experience with dogs in India, but I don't know if it was export or only import. Anyway, they were also super helpful and friendly. They WILL answer your call and they speak English. Even if they can't help you, perhaps they can tell you someone who can. They were honest enough that when I talked to them, I was ready to fork over the money to let them do the job and then they told me that it would be cheaper if I just went through Continental. Even though by then they realized they would not have my business, they still talked to me for a good half an hour with useful information. They are based in Austin. Their number is 512-264-9800. Of course this is a US number so you'll have to dial country code first. Anyway, they are expensive and probably you will end up having to pay this ridiculous fee.

OK, from what I understand, Continental does not handle the dog within India, only once the dog gets on the plane. This is not the case in other countries where the dog stays under Continental care the entire time, even in the airport. This was a problem for us, too, when we landed in Mumbai with our dog. Once she was handed over to the Mumbai airport employees, everything went wrong. Luckily, we threw a fit and had a connection and were able to reconcile the situation without paying the nearly 1,000 dollar vet fee that they are now telling you about.

This fee is actually not legally necessary if you have all the paperwork. It is supposed to be necessary for people who do not have proper vet checks and records, etc. There is a law that states as much. We actually did the leg work and got a higher ranking Mumbai customs official to print out a letter that cites the law stating that we do not need to pay this additional vet fee as we had our paperwork verified beforehand, etc. Nonetheless, the airport employees would hear nothing of it, and they demanded a vet fee. They could not have cared less about our letter. This is how they make money, no doubt.

The "cargo" area where they hold your dog is nothing but an unairconditioned warehouse where your dog will sit in a box and literally dehydrate to death because no one will give him water. I know because I threw a fit and let myself into the cargo area and personally let my dog out of the box despite the fact that the employees were all following me and screaming at me that I was not allowed to enter. The conditions were horrible. This is why I said you must have someone on the ground in India. I can't imagine what would happen if you were sitting on a plane and did not know your dog didn't make it on board until you were back in NY.

I've heard more decent things about flying dogs out of Delhi, so you might want to check into that. Mumbai might be particularly bad.

So sorry to hear this. Please keep us updated and let us know how it turns out.

**After re-reading your post, I wanted to add that I know of two other people who shipped their dogs from India and in both cases they paid these high fees. They were both shipping their dogs through a company move and therefore did not have to handle the paperwork or pay the fees themselves, so they don't know the details of it. But I wanted to add that it is the norm for people to pay so much.

Nattusbs

Fly with Singapore Airlines with your pet on the same flight.

They are the best in terms of pet-travel - there will be along lay-over in Singapore, and the airlines will charge $25 for "food, walk etc" during that time. It is well worth it.

Talk to a local travel agent and get all required certificates of vaccinations etc done. Americans do love their pets and you will be just fine.

Cheers

Nattusbs

birds

DO NOT FLY YOUR DOG AS FREIGHT!! This is huge hassle and expensive. They will forever keep asking bribes. And in the end your dog will not get to the USA.

Whatever you do make sure you are together with your dog on the same plane. This means that you need to check in your dog as luggage at the same time you check in yourself.

Carla's recommendation of keeping somebody at the airport while they load the dog is very valuable and if I were you I would definitely follow this advice

I did fly my dogs with Indian Airlines from Bangalore to Goa and that went reasonably well. I would not prefer them internationally though as their track record is not the best.

I know various people who fly dogs with KLM from Mumbai to the USA via Amsterdam. So far I have not heard of any bad experiences. They organised their own paperwork and booked their own flights to keep cost down. They faced no particular hassle. They will do it again in April so I could let you know how it went.

With regards to cost, it will not be cheap but should be less than Rs.45,000.

For further assistance you can contact www.stichtingaai.nl This organisation brings stray dogs from abroad to the Europe and may be able to help you further. One woman called Marion from this organisation will also bring a dog from Mumbai to Europe on KLM in April so you may want to contact her: marion@stichtingaai.nl

Whatever you do do not give up! Your dog looks beautiful and I am sure she is worth the hassle and eventual expense.

Let us know how you get on and in the meantime I wish you lots of luck.

__________________
Of the estimated 500 million dogs in the world, approximately 75% are strays, of which about 25 million live in India.

birds

My friend got back to me with the cost and told me that KLM charges Euro 30 per kilo!!! Often the problem is not so much the weight of the dog but you also have to pay for the weight of the kennel and they tend to be between 6 and 10 kilos empty!

She also told me that Condor (www.condor.com), the charter company that flies during six months from Goa, charges a flat fee of Euro 120 no matter size or weight of the dog. So if you are flexible with time you may want to consider this.

It also seems that it is worth checking with all the airlines to see which one offers the best prices.

Let us know how you get on!

Nick-H

flying dog back to USA

Every time I see this thread title, I wish I was skilled at Photoshop, and could produce an aircraft with 'Dog' livery!

Anastasia, I hope you get your friend home.

gweilo

Does anyone know if Anastasia got her dog back home???

jyotsna kunwar

I am moving to New York and would appreciate if any one has updated info/suggestions on how to take my dog with me.Have less than 2 months to start and complete the process.Am looking at flying out of Delhi.