Perhaps it may seem less caring or more expensive to let someone outside of your family handle your pet transport, and indeed the internet is full of short, peppy articles on ‘DIY pet transport’. But as with any other specialised industry, wisdom and know-how is built up over time and hones the instincts especially regarding the tricky paperwork which makes up the core of the processing work. Animal Travel expertise has been called upon often in its twenty years by distraught owners with a pet stuck at the airport. Diana says, ‘When you are stressed with a move, tackling a new process which involves a lot of important details can have a huge impact on your pet if something goes wrong.’ On the other hand, some Animal Travel clients grow impatient or worried about deadlines, since the preparation process can take time.
Why does the preparation for a move sometimes take so long?
If you are wondering why it can take weeks to prep for a move, an Animal Travel consultant will need to work on a pet transport procedure for as long as it takes government departments take time to process requests and return correct answers queries. Embassies sometimes call Animal Travel for advice or information regarding their own policies, as despite independent animal transport associations set up in many countries, as well as access to their own immigrations departments, it can be a frustrating merry-go-round even for embassies to acquire the specialised, correct and up-to-date information regarding pet transport. Animal Travel has been in the game for so long that the quality of their information is renowned, but even so, tricky questions can take weeks verging on investigation, inside government departments.
Sometimes officials in government departments, regardless of the country, do not know the answer to the question, are overwhelmed with work loads or simply unwilling to help. In this case, you can receive answers such as ‘I am not at liberty to divulge this information’ regarding something as harmless as animal quarantine procedures! Some clients have called themselves to ascertain quarantine procedures, to be told ‘Oh, no quarantine has been canceled’ – which needlessly upsets our clients who then think we’re smoking our socks when we say the quarantine is still in place – or as has happened sometimes, when an official cannot answer a question, they will simply hang up on you. When you consider how long it takes to really know a job as detailed as this, its not surprising. You have to be on the look out all the time, since small errors can end in an animal being barred permission into a country. For example, last week, an Animal Travel agent was issued with a new permit with an incorrect date – in fact, the permit looked as if it was expired by a year! Had the agent not checked every detail, the animal would have been held up indefinitely at the airport.
Is over-the-phone information from a pet transport agency sufficient?
If you have decided to try pet transport yourself calling a pet travel agency for advice can’t really guantee you the information you need since unexpected things crop up all the time. Although both Diana and Vanessa spend hours answering questions on the telephone, even outlining the procedure thoroughly for a pet owner cannot guarantee a safe landing. Animal Travel receives many calls where people think it will be cheaper to do it themselves. Pet transport is considered a specialised industry because of years of accumulated knowledge and information regarding the 190 plus countries in the world and their indivudal procedures. At Animal Travel, we like to say that since moving for animal and person alike is stressful, you take care of your family and we’ll take care of your pets.