Cost of Taking Pets

resa: nope. i don't have anyone here, and i'm leaving in april, so i'd have to board her over here for six months. i figure if she's going to be boarded, it might as well be where i can visit her all the time.

jennredd: i'll be in weston-super-mare, but i'm hoping to do grad school at bristol.

and i just got back my estimate from airborne animals -- $2500 - 2600 to take her from vermont to heathrow.

resa: nope. i don't have anyone here, and i'm leaving in april, so i'd have to board her over here for six months. i figure if she's going to be boarded, it might as well be where i can visit her all the time.

jennredd: i'll be in weston-super-mare, but i'm hoping to do grad school at bristol.

and i just got back my estimate from airborne animals -- $2500 - 2600 to take her from vermont to heathrow.

Thats the company we used to ship my cats here to the UK. they are awesome, I cant sing there praises enough.   

I have an 18lb Cairn Terrier and it cost me about $560.00 to fly him from Chicago to Manchester.

The vet bills and everything else (blood test, microchip, cost to have USDA vet endorse forms) was about $300.00.  It might have been more, I'm just guestimating, because like others, I tried not to focus on the cost!

I won't even comment on petrol costs (driving to and from USDA vet to have him endorse the forms AGAIN because my vet f*cked up) or how many hours I spent investigating what the vet needed to do.

I did all the paperwork myself, and it was hard and sometimes frustrating (but worth NOT having to pay a company to do it for me), but people on this site helped immensely.  My vet really didn't know much about the pets scheme, so it was up to me to know the information (don't assume the vet knows, or will try to know, everything).

Quarantine is very expensive and should be the last option, because the Pets programme only takes six months and with help from people on here, isn't going to be too hard.

Thats the company we used to ship my cats here to the UK. they are awesome, I cant sing there praises enough.   

i've seen a lot of people on here had great things to say about them. i also talked to pet transporter worldwide, but they wanted to charge $20.95 just to draw up a basic estimate. i thought that was absolutely ridiculous. sally got back to me right away with an estimate, no charge. (and it was actually a little less than i was expecting, since i'm not near a major airport.)

I just called BA World Cargo to get a quote for my 2 dogs from ATL to LGW:

They quoted me based on kennel size (27"x20"x19"... series 200 crate), including all customs/clearance fees from ATL to LGW as $1619.58 (for both my Yorkie and Min Poodle combined). I didn't think to ask if that included the crate! I've already called 2 times today so I think I will wait until tomorrow to ask them that.

 :\\\'( We just got our quote from Airborne animals at $4000!!!! I guess it was to be expected, we have 3 dogs, one that is 65lbs. I just didnt realise quite how expensive this was going to be....ughh I feel sick.....

I just got an estimate from Airpets, a company based near Heathrow, for about £1599 to take my rather large greyhound to Washington, DC (I wrote about this in the wrong place in the repatriation board, without realising there was a special board for pet issues -- sorry!)

That included £1200 to fly him BA cargo. (Virgin quoted me £567, the bulk rate for 100 kg of cargo, but Virgin cargo doesn't deal with agents apparently.)

The rest of the Airpets quote was for a night's boarding (supposedly obligatory because the airlines prefer to take animals only on the very early morning flights so as not to hit U.S. customs at closing time, so they have to be sure the animals can leave the kennels bright and early), the veterinary fitness-to-fly certificate, a custom kennel, transport from their kennels to the cargo terminal, roughly £90-£100 for each item I think.

If you are looking at having to quarantine your dog, I think (check this with Defra) you can reduce the amount of time he spends there by getting his rabies shot and blood test for rabies immunity done right away. You can import him to the UK six months after a successful blood test. So if you get the test results next week and leave two weeks after that, he would have to spend five months and two and a half weeks in quarantine rather than a full six months. Hope that makes sense.

I just called BA World Cargo to get a quote for my 2 dogs from ATL to LGW:

They quoted me based on kennel size (27"x20"x19"... series 200 crate), including all customs/clearance fees from ATL to LGW as $1619.58 (for both my Yorkie and Min Poodle combined). I didn't think to ask if that included the crate! I've already called 2 times today so I think I will wait until tomorrow to ask them that.

It won't include the crate.  That's up to you to buy and you need to ensure its an approve crate and big enough for your dogs.  There's info online, but the gist of it is your dog must be able to stand without its head touching the top, turn around and lie out.  There also has to be air holes throughout.

My crate was $50 and that was for a 17lb Cairn Terrier.

We, thats the family and the 3 year old Springer, are flying Virgin on Wednesday evening, be glad when its over.

Went to the Virgin cargo area today to have the cage inspected, they recommend that to avoid any last minute hitch, if they deem the cage too small. Not a problem with our cage, you could house a small elephant in it!!

Anyway, COST; the way Virgin determine this is by the greater weight of your animal OR, the volumetric weight of the cage. Our cage was set to cost us $1,300, which was a volumetric weight of around 80 something kilo's. The VERY nice lady at virgin rounded the weight up to 100kg, which immediately drops the rate per kilo from something like $13 a kilo to $7 something a kilo... bottom line, she saved us $400.

Her caring manner was a relief, its stressful enough putting the dog through this. That only leaves the 230GBP (plus 17.5% vat) at the Heathrow end.

What is the 235 GBP+VAT for?

i believe its a customs fee or the like.

Julia-I too live in Atlanta and will be taking two cats over in August.  Have you dealt with th USDA vet in Conyers yet?  I think there are some forms they have to sign but it can't be done more than 10 days before your flight.  Does that sound correct?  Also where did you get your crates?
Thanks
D

Julia-I too live in Atlanta and will be taking two cats over in August.  Have you dealt with th USDA vet in Conyers yet?  I think there are some forms they have to sign but it can't be done more than 10 days before your flight.  Does that sound correct?  Also where did you get your crates?
Thanks
D

You have to do the PETS certificate which should be done before 10 days in advance (do not wait that long to do it -- this is assuming you've gone through the whole process: microchipping, rabies vax, blood titer test, etc.). You also should do a health certificate from your vets office which I think is what can't be done more than 10 days in advance and you have to do the tick treatment within 48 hours of checking your dogs in. I would call the airline and call the USDA to make sure you're on the right track. I've done PETS certificates for my dogs since they started in 2003 until they started with this new form which isn't valid the whole year, but I have kept up their vaccinations so I just have to get the forms filled out and sent to the USDA for their signature/stamp. I'm about to dig into all my paperwork and get it all taken care of. I'm not sure the if health certificate is 100% necessary or who really needs it but it can't hurt to have.

Julia-I too live in Atlanta and will be taking two cats over in August.  Have you dealt with th USDA vet in Conyers yet?  I think there are some forms they have to sign but it can't be done more than 10 days before your flight.  Does that sound correct?  Also where did you get your crates?
Thanks
D

I flew out of Atlanta (I'm from Athens) with two cats last October and I found the USDA vet to be very efficient and knowledgeable about what needed to be done when.  I made an appointment with her for several days before we left (a Friday, I think?) and it turned out that my local vet had screwed up the paperwork (there's a thread about it on the board somewhere), and I wound up having to drive back up to Conyers the day before we left (Monday - we left on a Tuesday) with new paperwork....all's well that ends well, though, and we made it to the UK just fine.

I bought my carriers at either Petco or Petsmart over by the Mall of Georgia - I think maybe I got one at one place and the other at the other place?  Those and the one in Conyers are the closest ones to Athens, though - since you're in Atlanta, I imagine you won't have to drive to Buford to get carriers!

If you have any questions about the process, feel free to PM me. 

I flew out of Atlanta (I'm from Athens) with two cats last October and I found the USDA vet to be very efficient and knowledgeable about what needed to be done when.  I made an appointment with her for several days before we left (a Friday, I think?) and it turned out that my local vet had screwed up the paperwork (there's a thread about it on the board somewhere), and I wound up having to drive back up to Conyers the day before we left (Monday - we left on a Tuesday) with new paperwork....all's well that ends well, though, and we made it to the UK just fine.

I bought my carriers at either Petco or Petsmart over by the Mall of Georgia - I think maybe I got one at one place and the other at the other place?  Those and the one in Conyers are the closest ones to Athens, though - since you're in Atlanta, I imagine you won't have to drive to Buford to get carriers!

If you have any questions about the process, feel free to PM me. 

did you not have to get your paperwork authorized by the USDA vet anyway (or do you not have to do that if the vet is accredited?) I made an appt for 2pm today to meet with an accredited vet to get the paperwork filled out.