Did you take your pet with you?

[Imsosorryalan]

Just wondering this. My dog is only young but very nervous and gets very stressed with kennels, anywhere new. We are considering a permanent move to oz in 5 + years. I know they quarantine them but am wondering if she would be better with my mum. What did you all do?

[Imsosorryalan]

Just wanted to add that I am not taking this decision lightly and it will be very hard to leave her behind if that's what we decided to do.. I also didn't have any plans for oz when we got her.

[PeriPathetic]

Yes. But only because I've moved to places which don't quarantine if all the paperwork is sorted out. Personally, I wouldn't consider putting my sensitive, very family oriented dog (and my cat, btw) into quarantine.

How long is quarantine in Australia?

[chloeb2002]

We brought our dog to aus with us! She was a neurotic crazy lurcher! But we loved her age had 5 happy years here before her doggy dementia got too much for her and us sadly
My dh will tell you it was over $1000 a year to get her here!
In glad we did. Quarenteen is only 3 weeks. But has to be Sydney ( I think) I know none in Brisbane . So you then have to fly them to where you are.

[butterfliesinmytummy]

We moved to singapore 6 years ago and our vet advised us that our 12 year old cat probably wouldn't make the journey. There is also a high level of feline HIV in singapore and she wouldn't have been happy being a house cat.

We packed her case and flew her from Aberdeen to London in 2008 and she's still happily ruling the roost at my dad's house.

It was without a doubt the right decision for us. Had she been a younger house cat, we might well have taken her with us.

[Reddeb]

We took our 14 year old cat to Australia. He was in good health, people said we were mad, but our vet said it would be hard/impossible to rehome a cat of this age and he hated putting pets down because of owners going overseas so he thought without question we should take him. He was in quarantine for 5 weeks and then joined us, still in great condition and we know we made the right decision for our family.

[fussychica]

We left our cat with my parents who lived next door so she was really used to them. It was a wrench but she was a Norwegian Forest cat with a double thick black coat and the temps could go to 42 in our new location so we thought she might be very uncomfortable.

When we returned we landed up bringing back two feral kittens who had been dumped on our window ledge by their sick mum. They were adults by the time we brought them to UK. Amazingly, they were very relaxed about the whole thing though the female has become pretty much a house cat as it's too cold and wet for her liking most of the time!

[NancyinCali]

We brought our dog to the USA but no quarantine here. We waited until we were settled before flying him over (he stayed with family in the meantime). Couldn't have imagined not bringing him.

I have friends who moved their cats successfully to Oz.

[BertieBotts]

We rehomed our cat and gerbils, even though we were only moving to Germany.

Reason being the cat was more attached to the neighbours than he was to me anyway :( we didn't have the money, and we were struggling to find somewhere to live, so the added complication of a pet could have left us homeless. I asked the neighbours and they said they were happy to take him on. Gerbils I was really not attached to enough for the hassle, asked around on facebook, found someone happy to take them. Not sure what we would have done if we hadn't have found anyone, I don't know that shelters take small animals.

Unfortunately the cat was killed in an RTA before we left anyway so in fact we never got the choice. :(

DH left his dog with his parents. She'd lived there all her life and it was the cost/housing issue. Now our landlady is happy for us to have pets but the house is too small for them.

[livingzuid]

Took my extremely nervy dog to NZ. She was absolutely fine and very well looked after. Using one of the reputable pet travel agencies is very easy, just make sure you get the rabies jabs and worming tablets up to date in advance.

[livingzuid]

But it is also expensive! It cost about £2,500 one way to fly her out to Auckland. No quarantine there.

[chloeb2002]

$2500 is cheap ;0) we spent about $5000! Possibly more.. Pre flight blood checks.. vaccinations.. Vet checks.. Worming.. Quarantine... Flights to Sydney.. Flight to bris.. Airline crate..

[Booboostoo]

I moved four dogs, a cat and a four horses to the south of France, leaving them behind was not an option. The dogs and cat we took over ourselves, the horses went with a professional transported at the cost of 2,000.

[livingzuid]

Pounds not dollars :) if I did that in NZD it would be over 5,000 definitely.

[livingzuid]

The dog she traveled next to had nearly chewed his way out of the crate by the time it arrived in Auckland

[chloeb2002]

:0) ahhhh wooden crate? We got a plastic and metal vari kennel. My only problem was actually on arrival at Brisbane when they left Molly on the Tarmac outside the depot in 35 degree heat .. No water.. Grrrrr not happy!
Otherwise it was a good journey at great cost!

[livingzuid]

Oh yes wooden crate, big clunky thing! That's awful about being left on the tarmac, I thought they were supposed to get creatures to the animal clearing place first? We saw our dog be taken off and walked whilst we waited for paperwork etc she was tail wagging :)

[chloeb2002]

Didn't get to see her arrive into Sydney. Straight to kennels... Where she promptly escaped from 2 days later! ( luckily only into the run!) we were going to drive to pick her up. Cheaper to send up by plane and quicker. But sadly not much animal loving going on with aus air express!

[ksb76]

Our little dog is on his 3rd move - he's actually Australian by birth and has moved back to the UK and then onto the USA. Right now we are due to move to Canada next month, so this will be trip number 3. I would say make sure your paperwork is all sorted and the quarantine time into australia won't feel very long. The flights themselves are absolutely fine - we've always had a pet shipping company help and 'world care pets' have been great - on the flight from Oz to the UK they had a rep at singapore make sure the change of planes went fine, gave him water etc and then texted me to let me know he had departed safely. I know it sounds daft, but it made me feel happier to know that they were looking out for him.