XXXL Dog shipping

[ChrisB]

Hi all,

I'm a returning Kiwi, coming back to the Wellington area, from Frankfurt, Germany. While I've been over here, my partner and I have adopted a rather large Kangal (Anatolian Shepherd, think Great Dane size) - 120cm from nose to bum, and something like 65kg!

Obviously he's coming back with us, but his size poses some problems - firstly, the only crate we've found big enough is plastic (a no-go for air-freight), so it looks like we'll have to get one custom made.

Does anyone have experience with shipping such a large dog, or know anything more in depth about engineering a crate? I'm aware of the IATA standards, has anyone built a crate off of those, is there anything that isn't written in there? E.g. they don't seem to mention requiring water or food, or how it's meant to be put into the cage...

Cheers,

Chris

[girlwithanewf]

I feel your pain...you're going to regret the day you didn't adopt a cat.

We've shipped not just a cat but also a Golden Retriever and a Newfoundland who in his prime weighed 68kg (before he went on a very big diet!). The cat and Retriever have had plastic crates which were perfectly acceptable for international flights. The Newfoundland had a wooden box custom made by the dog shippers. They don't have food but they do get water in the crate via a water feeder and this is topped up at the transit airport. They also had bedding too which is disposed of on arrival.

If you can afford it I would definitely recommend using animal shippers just so everything is absolutely right. If anything on the paperwork or with the vet requirements is not correct, the dog just won't fly and that would be hugely expensive. Another obvious thing to bear in mind is that airlines can only take a maximum number of animals per flight. You don't need to be on the same flight though.

The crates weren't the most expensive part of the fare at all, so definitely get them professionally made by a shipping company. If it doesn't meet requirements it just won't be accepted and won't be safe.

It's an expensive process and with such a large dog you can't really cut financial corners.
You'll definitely have one of the largest dogs in Wellington

[traciaylmer]

Golden arrow have so far been great with our large Shepard.

[ChrisB]

tracialymer, I've read quite good things about golden arrow, and I think my parents may have used them when the whole family went over 10 years ago (2 king charles + a labrador!). Problem is, we're in Germany, and we he needs to live in the country he ships from for 6 months. I believe Golden Arrow is UK only?

[frootbat]

Definitely use a shipping company and their custom made crates. We sold ours on Trademe after we got here.

[arrseegee]

tracialymer, I've read quite good things about golden arrow, and I think my parents may have used them when the whole family went over 10 years ago (2 king charles + a labrador!). Problem is, we're in Germany, and we he needs to live in the country he ships from for 6 months. I believe Golden Arrow is UK only?

Hi Chris

We had this same problem bringing our pug to NZ from Germany. Many shippers wouldn't ship a pug and we ended up talking to UK shippers. I checked it out with MPI and there are no major issues because the UK is in the same rabies category as Germany. A government vet needs to sign off on everything immediately before your dog flies out, i.e. when you are no longer there to sort it all out, which is where you can run into problems if they have any issues with the way Germany have done things. For example, the UK probably uses different laboratories for the tests than Germany does, a vet might get fussy and refuse to sign (as the Amtstierarzt very nearly did to us too, by the way!).

We did end up finding a German-based pet shipper, Gradlyn, who successfully got the dog to NZ, but given the option we would have used another shipper as they were a bit disorganised.

Can't help you out with crates sorry but our plastic crate had a water tray attached to it and the pet shippers attached one of those dripper things that hamsters drink from. He was let out at a stopover for a feed and a drink but generally they will not allow your dog to be given food while it is in the crate because of the choking risk.

[Lazysnapper]

Have a chat with these guys?

https://lufthansa-cargo.com/products...pecials/livetd