First, thank you to so many here who have given advice, encouragement and support over the past few months.
Our cat, Caiomhe, made it safely to our home, but not without some difficulty. It all worked out in the end, but I hope this can help others.
Two weeks ago, I flew out to Seattle to finish the preparations to bring our kitty back. The only approved route from Seattle is via British airways, and you are required to book through an IPATA pet shipper. BA gave us only ONE name for the general Seattle area that does this. I will just call this person "dude" and will provide more info, if asked, via PM.
Monday (1 week, 1 day before our flight) I called dude to arrange for her transport. I had started calling weeks earlier about booking her transport, but was told at every turn that I had to wait until 14 days before my flight. Between time differences, last minute preparations, and my flight back to the US this was my first opportunity.
Dude took my info, faxed a form for my vets office and told me when and where to drop her off. I resisted the urge to call several times in the remaining week, partially because I didn't want to be one of those people who calls all the time, and partially because he really knew what he was talking about. More so than all the vets I had dealt with to that point.
In the meantime, I drove to the USDA to have the 3rd country certificate endorsed. Monday (a week after my initial call and the day before the flight) I had her tick and tapeworm treatment done. I called dude to confirm everything and he said that NOTHING was booked. He told me that I hadn't faxed back the C-5 form (the import form) and because of that, nothing had been booked. He said he had left several messages that I didn't return. He said he'd see what he could do (it was about 3 p.m.) and call back.
I was livid. Yes, I take responsibility for not calling sooner, or calling more often. Having said that, I'm not the professional whose job it is to coordinate that. I know for a fact he didn't leave ONE message. We had no problems with our phone lines, messages from DH in England, a friend in NY and a friend in CA were left without issue. Secondly, it was never communicated to me that I was to fax him this C-5 form. I was under the impression that I was to just bring it with me when I dropped her off.
While I waited for dude to call back, I went to DEFRA's website, where there was a link to IPATA. I saw that there were three pet shippers that would fly out of SEA-TAC, and filed this information away.
Dude called back (no, he didn't even need to confirm our phone number before doing so) and said there was nothing he could do to get her on my flight Tuesday. He said Wednesday was a possibility. Of course, Wednesday would've been too late for her tick and tapeworm treatment, so we'd have to worry about her getting stuck in quarantine for 24 hours after the treatments were re-administered. Furthermore, I was unable to change my flight to Wednesday due to bookings. This meant that DH would drive from Yorkshire to Heathrow Wednesday to pick me up (~4-5 hours one way), I would drive to Heathrow Thursday to pick her up, and might find out that I would have to drive back Friday to get her due to quarantine. YUCK!
The icing on the cake was how unconcerned, and how much dude just didn't care about this. Especially given that he didn't really call. As for the tick and tapeworm treatment, he suggested that I doctor the form to make it look a day later than it was done. When I called him on the fact that he didn't call, he added that he also emailed me. When I asked him which email address he backpedaled and conceded that he didn't have an email address for me and that must have been 'someone else who wasn't returning his calls'. I really pushed him, asking what else could be done, but he really didn't care and the call ended. He said he was going to call back Tuesday and see what he could do.
I called the two other IPATA agents in the area. One was on vacation. The other, Sandy from VIP Pet Transport was a godsend. I called her up, and she could hear how upset I was (though I was trying to keep my emotion in check). She took my details and told me it would be hard but she would try to do what she could.
Sandy was very assuring. She was compassionate, professional and honest. She has been in the biz for 13 years, and ships her own show dogs quite regularly.
She called me back quite soon and with a solution. She was upfront in saying that while BA does a good job with pets, Continental is by far her preference for the high quality staff they have and the fact that they end up being cheaper than BA. Sandy booked Caiomhe on a flight from Seattle to Houston and then Houston to Gatwick. The bad part was that she had be at the airport at 6:30 a.m. and so she had a much longer journey than she would have had otherwise.
Sandy said she's had a lot of people that came to her after bad experiences with dude and that she's brought this up to IPATA. Now that I'm slowly getting over jet lag, I will be writing IPATA, as dude's behavior was very unprofessional.
Sandy charged $150 for her services, and I paid $670 for our pet's transport (she ended up in a Vari Kennel 200) and clearing fees. She got cleared through Gatwick quite quickly, and unfortunately had to wait for us to get there from Heathrow. She appeared to be in shock - the staff at reception said she was cold and floppy. Her ears were trembling. She was acting differently - she was content to sit on my lap the entire drive home, which is unusual for her. She settled in at home though and is now back to her normal self.
Sorry for such a long recap. I want others who may come out of Seattle know that there are more options out there than what BA tells you there are. I wouldn't be surprised if Sandy would also coordinate flights for others (not in the NW) who want the extra assistance.
Again, thanks to all who helped and best wishes to those still in the process.
~Sonja (and Caiomhe!)
