Preparing Your Dog for a Flight

As some of you who follow Dogs Allowed on Twitter or Facebook may already know, a few days ago Zorra came with me from London to California. She immediately settled in and is loving every minute of being here (particularly the pool) but I had to do a lot of work and research to get her ready to fly.

If you are planning on taking your dog on a plane here are some tips:

1) Do some research about which airlines are available for the route you are taking. One long flight is easier for a dog to handle than a layover. Airlines have different pet policies so you should read these carefully before booking; for instance, Virgin Atlantic has climate control in the dog area and your pet earns you miles: win!

2) Read your airline's pet travel requirements very carefully, some may require extra health checks to reduce the risk of something going wrong. If you are in any doubt call the airline, usually people who work in the pet travel department of airlines are dog people and very friendly!

3) IF YOU ARE TRAVELING ABROAD: look at the requirements for BOTH the country you are leaving and the country you are arriving in, especially if you plan to come back and bring your dog with you. You want to avoid quarantine at all costs. These can usually be found on your country's government website, but quite often you can get this information from the airline. In Europe it is essential that you get a pet passport as soon as possible because a blood test must be carried out weeks after the initial shots.

4) If a vet check is required go to the vet early, for instance with Virgin I was required to get a vet check for Zorra within 10 days of travel, so I went 9 days before traveling to the vet. This was good, because I was an idiot and I forgot to bring her passport with me to be stamped, if I had left it too late I would not have had time to make another appointment.

5) Do NOT sedate your dog for the flight! Virgin and some other airlines do not allow animals on the plane which have been sedated because they can stop breathing and die. Even if you airline does allow sedated animals please don't do it! Dogs are resilient, and  they should settle on their own but even if they don't a distressed dog is better than a dead one!

6) Make sure you put bedding in the crate which is soft, absorbent, and which you don't mind throwing away. Especially for long flights they are quite likely to pee on it even if they are completely house trained .

I hope if you do travel with your dog that it goes as smoothly as it did for me and my dog! I believe that all dogs should be crate trained because it makes situations like this much easier. Even though I haven't crated Zorra since she was a puppy she settled quickly and clearly felt safe and comfortable. With these steps you should be well on your way to a safe and fun trip with your dog!

Happy travels!

Dogs on the London Underground

Dogs on the London Underground

The tube is an excellent way to travel around London and for the most part it is very easy to take your dog on it. I recently found that some stations can be much harder to navigate than others. For instance, Victoria Station is dog-accessible for the Circle and District lines but not for the Victoria line, which only has escalator access. The step-free access map actually does not help with finding tube stops which are more dog friendly. Deeper stations with lots of underground tunnels are fine for experienced dogs but are not ideal for young dogs who might get restless or which aren't toilet trained; the only issue are platforms which are only accessible by escalators. Dogs Allowed is going to venture to find out which stations and lines are the most dog friendly, stay tuned!

Dogs, Tourists and Children

Today was a glorious Bank Holiday Monday. The sun was out, and so were the crowds. Zorra and I went out for a walk, as did thousands of other dogs and their owners. Parks, especially those in London, are shared spaces. This means that even though we would love to let our dogs race around in wide open spaces with only the buildings poking over the trees to remind us that we are not in the wilds of Devon, we are instead affronted with thousands of locals and tourists of all ages.

I can say from personal experience that not all picnic goers are thrilled by the addition of a large, happy, bouncing dog to their party. Some people are genuinely pleased to have a dog say hello, but it is particularly important to keep an eye on the faces of the people that your dog is approaching. Recall is so important when there are crowds.

Children are a completely mixed bag when it comes to dogs. Today Zorra induced three very different reactions from children in the park. Several recoiled and shrinked away at the mere sight of a big black dog. When I was a child I never understood those types of kids, but as long as your dog ignores them as Zorra did you can move on without incident. If your dog tries to approach these kids DO NOT let them! You could cause the child to become even more afraid, and remember that scared children often come with over-protective parents. Another reaction was scared children with parents who desperately wanted the kids to say hi to the dog. This is a tricky situation, and it really depends on the temperament of your dog. If you have a very calm, steady dog who will just sit there as the child decides if they want to approach then fine, but if your dog will react at all it is probably best to just move on. It is not your job to get someone else's kid to love dogs.

The third reaction from a child that Zorra caused today was particularly funny. While we were playing fetch a small girl, not even 2 years old, slowly toddled over from where her family was having a picnic. I could see her coming, so I stopped playing and told Zorra to lie down. The girl reached us around the same time that her father saw and sprinted over. She desperately wanted to pet the dog, but at the same time she did not want to relinquish the sandwich she was clutching. This was a predicament, because Zorra was starting to eye up the sandwich. She would never snatch it from someone, but I was still worried as this was a very small child. The father tried to take the sandwich from the girl, but she cried so he gave it back. Then she did something very surprising, this tiny little girl offered her sandwich to a dog that was three times her size. Zorra obviously took it, then ran away and the girl started to cry. I had to wonder if the girl was crying because of the loss of the sandwich or the absence of the dog. Either way, this was the kind of kid that I could relate to.