DogsTravel

Bruce and I took off from our Alaska home on January 10, 2005 for a four week stay at Casa Libertad, our home in Mexico on Jaltemba Bay.

This was the longest vacation we have ever had. So long in fact, that Bruce had to return to work in Alaska for a few days in late January. For my part, I anticipated that this big block of time would leave me with a great satisfaction. In reality, this long visit had the opposite effect. I have never felt so blue about leaving our friends and the good life on Jaltemba Bay.

This trip was less like a vacation and more like a practice-move to what will eventually be our winter home in Mexico. Rather than contract with Mark, our very able house and dog sitter, we shut the Alaska house down, and brought the dogs with us.

Our dogs are 12 year old, standard poodles. They had never been in an air kennel before. We bought two of the XL size about six weeks before we traveled and started getting the dogs accustomed to them. This breed is generally very mellow; still the dogs were skittish and suspicious at first. We started out introducing them to just the bottom half of the kennels with their dog beds in them. A few weeks later we put the tops on without the doors. If the dogs got a treat during this time, (their faves are Brussels sprouts or cabbage) we gave it to them in the kennels. They learned to like being in their gassy little environments. Eventually we added the doors and started providing their drinking water, only in the small dishes that clip to the inside of the doors.

The timetable we followed was just something that we made up as we went along. It seems like it worked out just right. By the time we were ready to travel, the dogs were ready too.

We did follow Dr. Patricia McConnell’s advice (“Calling All Pets” on NPR) and never put them into their kennels as punishment.

The only paperwork needed to travel with dogs from the USA to Mexico and return is a certificate of good health from a Veterinarian in the USA. This document is only good for 30 days, so we had to wait until almost the last day to get ours. At Anchorage, when we checked our dogs in, the airline agent asked to see this document and entering at Customs in Mexico, we were asked for this document.

When we went to check our dogs in at the baggage counter in Mexico for the return trip to the USA, the ticket agent told us that the document had to be okayed by a Mexican government agency and that if they did not okay it, we would have to take the dogs across the highway to a Veterinarian for another (I supposed, new Health Certificate) document. This unwelcome news caused us some anxiety for a few moments as paranoid visions of bureaucratic runarounds and standing in endless wrong lines danced in our heads.

I stayed at the counter and continued our check-in procedure while Bruce walked the dogs the few feet to the window which the airline agent directed him to. There was no line. A person on the other side of the window asked to see the health certificate but paid little attention to the dogs that Bruce had on a leash. He stamped the back of the certificate with a stamp that says “Libre de Fiebre Aftosa” and hand wrote the day’s date. (My translator says this means “Free of Hoof and Mouth Disease.”) Surprisingly, there was no fee.

Very soon, Bruce was back with the dogs just as I was getting done checking in our baggage. . I think now, in retrospect, the agent was just a bit misinformed. I think the reality of the situation was just that she was not qualified to inspect the document. She could have save us some unneeded stress by better explaining herself. I think the trip to a new Vet for a new certificate was probably never going to happen as long as the certificate from Alaska was all legal and correct and not outside of the 30 day limit.

I must say, Alaska Airlines was no help at all with informing us of any of these procedures. I spoke with many different airline people while setting up this travel and none of them had answers to many of my questions about traveling with dogs. My advise to first-time travelers with dogs is to start early asking questions. If you are undertaking a long trip and in the middle, you have a long layover and want to give your dogs a potty break, you have to buy your dogs a ticket just to the destination where your long lay over is. At the long layover, you claim your dog and at the same time, convince the baggage agent that you need to get a free ticket for them to continue with you.

One good thing that Alaska Airlines does do is provide small coupons that attach to the kennel when you start your trip. You fill out these coupons with your flight numbers and seat assignments for all legs of the trip. When the baggage handler puts your kennel on the plane, they lift the coupon for that leg and give it to one of the flight attendants. At some point before takeoff, the flight attendant comes to your seat and gives you the coupon as an assurance that your dog(s) are on board with you.

I will pass this tip along from a person I met while buying the kennels: before travel, freeze the water in the clip-on water dishes. This will ensure that the water is not all spilled during the loading process and during the flight, it will be gradually available as it thaws. It must be cold in the live animal area of the cargo hold. There was still ice in their bowls when we claimed the dogs at LAX, seven hours later.

Against the advise of most people, we did give the dogs doggie-downers for this trip. We medicated them for fear that they would not willingly go back in their kennels at LAX after the four hour layover. In their drugged stupor, after walking them around for almost an hour in the cold, drizzly LA morning air, they were more than willing to stumble back to bed in their kennels.

We had given the dogs these pills at Anchorage at about midnight. When we claimed the dogs in Puerto Vallarta, mid afternoon the next day, they seemed to be even more zonked out than they had been at LAX. Their eyes were rolled so far back in their heads that they could barely see. This started to worry me when they did not return to normal after three days! Our fellow dog loving friends in Mexico, anxious to see our pooches, were, for the most part, kind with their reactions to these grotesque looking creatures. Bruce and I decided that the dogs would make their northbound trip, au natural, without benefit of the downers and in fact, that trip went just fine.