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New Puppy - Transport - Fly or Drive?


love4paws
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Hi everyone, our puppy will be ready to come home in about 2 weeks, but we are finding ourselves very torn about transport options and would greatly appreciate some advice.

Details:

- puppy will be 8 weeks at time of travel

- puppy is located 1200 kms from us, in NSW, we live in Qld

- initially, we planned to drive down, but feeling somewhat anxious about covid cases now re-emerging

- also not sure if the 12 + hour drive home (or halve it with an overnight stay midway) would be stressful on the puppy (2 travellers so someone driving and someone attending to puppy)

- transport option: puppy collected in the morning, fly to Qld that afternoon (best case scenario but there is a slight risk of flight cancellations due to covid and the flight being delayed until next day)

- we did also speak with a road transport company but it would take two days so we have ruled that out

 

Thanks so much for any advice you could share.

 

 

 

 

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Flying would be my first choice and I would be contacting agents to see what the time frame is for flight spots .

Even if flight is cancelled it will have its breeder to return too .

Flights are pretty much on a better schedule now but animal spots are limited 

 

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28 minutes ago, persephone said:

Just a couple of things ..as I really can't help..but what breed of puppy  is your new acquisition , and has he/she been exposed to a crate etc yet ? 

Hi, it is a GSD puppy, it won't have been exposed to a crate at that stage unfortunately.

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2 hours ago, love4paws said:

Hi, it is a GSD puppy, it won't have been exposed to a crate at that stage unfortunately.

A lot of breeders have exposed there puppy to crates whether for car traveling,first vet visit or even after bath drying .

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Thanks everyone, ok it seems like flying might be the better option, which is the way we were leaning (and hoping would be the best choice), we were worried too how exhausted we would be after the two full days driving when we got back home with the puppy. Thanks so much for your replies :)

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I collected a puppy that was about the same distance away years ago, and going by car (with another driver) was a huge success.   Puppy got to know us gently (hearing, smelling us etc without pressure if that makes sense), and the car (and crate) became his safe space.   The crate was on the back seat and after a while we opened the crate door and he could chose to stay in or come out on to the back seat.  Frequent (puppy timed) comfort stops also meant he was house trained on the way.  He never made a mistake in the house when we got home.   Please note - this was long before dog seatbelts and tethering a dog in the car was unheard of - so our set up worked then, perhaps not now.

BUT - our pup was an amazing traveller.  I imagine it would quickly become a horror trip if the pup wouldn't settle and whinged constantly (GSD's can be 'talkative' :-)) or even worse - ypou were stuck with a carsick who drooled and hurled the whole way :-(

 

I have flown other pups and they came through it without a care - very tired, but not stressed.

 

Not sure if the above rambling helped :-)

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Just to reassure you some more ... my current 2 Border Collies came from interstate ... the older boy right across the country .. 2 flights with a 2 hour changeover in Melbourne.  He flew overnight , and arrived down here bright eyed and bushy tailed  at 10.30.   He was 10 weeks old. 

My youngster came from up country in another state .. so 3 hour car trip. time waiting at the airport, 2 flights .. stopover in Melbourne - delayed flight (VIrgin Freight made sure I knew about the delay) .. arrived about 10.20 pm at night .. quite happy .   Well raised puppies are resilient little critters.   My guys have had no problems flying or travelling on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry .   Now the nerves of the owner ... that's a whole different story! :rofl:

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Hi everyone, thanks so much for all of your responses, we really appreciate the input and it helped us a lot to make a decision :)

 

Flights are booked. We went with Dogtainers - they have been great throughout the booking process (they really shone through over all of the companies we contacted).

 

The little lad is due here on the 17th so will update with how he travelled :)

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
3 hours ago, love4paws said:

He made it safe and sound :)

A bit shaken and a little wet and cold but otherwise happy and has settled in very well (1 week at home now).

Thanks again everyone for the advice.

Arrival :) 

Naawwww!  That's lovely/.   Thanks for the update, and the video .. and so glad it went well and that he's settling in nicely.

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