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Wherever we travel in the van in this country, our dog Jimmy travels with us.
However, when we made our first oversees trip (to the Vendee) at Easter we left Jimmy at home - with a friend who runs a dog-walking business. Sadly, as some of you are aware, Jimmy was attacked on the morning we were due to collect him & almost died. Thankfully, Jimmy's recovery (for a 12 year old dog) has been miraculous.
We are now planning for next year & want to do Belgium / Holland / Northern Germany.
The big dilemma is do we take Jimmy or not?
If we do, he needs a pet passport - I understand it could take up to 6 months. Also, we want to do a fair amount of cycling & doubt that (even on flat cycle paths) Jimmy could keep up with us - certainly not on a daily basis.
If we leave Jimmy behind, we either leave him in a commercial kennels - even we shiver at the thought of that. Or we take a chance & trust Jimmy with a friend or member of the family. In which case, Mrs j. would spend 2 weeks+ having kittens & would, no doubt, be making daily phone calls to check on Jimmy's health.
So 'committee', what do we do? All thoughts, especially from pet owners, welcome.
______________________________________________________________ 30 mins 06 secs for 5kms? Not bad for an oldie...and aiming to go under 60 for 10k whilst under 60.
There are new regulations coming into force on 1st Jan 2012 I think, whereby you have to wait only a fortnight after the jabs before you can bring the pooch back into the UK. There was something on here a couple of weeks ago - I'll leave you to search as I'm feeling idle!!
12 year old dog > > > hot interior of van > > > can't really leave him for any length of time if the weather is more than warm.
Much as we love having our dog with us, it would be very restricting. Even in a much more dog-friendly country than ours there are lots of places you would be better off without him - in terms of freedom to do just as you please.
Unless your Dutch and German is excellent it might be very worrying if he became ill while you were abroad. Not easy to explain symptoms in a language in which you can do no more than order two beers!
Why not do what we did with our pup, and take Jim to a small local kennels for one day. Take him in the morning and collect him in the evening. Then you would have a pretty good idea how well he took to it. (OK - it's much easier with a pup, but the old boy would let you and the kennel maids know how he felt about it. Our little swine loves it, and pulls at the lead to get inside and poke her nose into the toy box!)
Just a few thoughts - that we have pondered ourselves. We may take ours in the early or late season if the restrictions have been eased a lot . . . but the decision has yet to be made.
Our 6 yr old Schnauzer,13 yr old cat, 17 yr od cat travel EVERYWHERE with us, 3/4 trips sur le continent each year, they're seasoned travellers now.Cheaper than kennels/catteries, and they and the missus are far happier.
tony
______________________________________________________________ WARNING.!!... The above post may contain an opinion
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
FWIW we leave for France in exactly one hour and we're going for a month. We left the dog (18 months old) with family four days' ago and we miss him already... We are definitely taking him (and the motorbike) with us next time.
well, you could still cycle with a wheeled carrier on the bike so Jimmy could watch the world go by
Next year he will be 13 and only you know what an extended trip would be like for him
I think the problem Jimmy had last time is very, very unlikely to happen again
I wouldn't leave him in a commercial Kennel unless it was one he was used to on frequent short stays
Friends or family seems like a good alternative, better still if a family member could stay in your home with him
In the end though its your decision, I imagine he is up to date with his injections and would only need a booster I have no idea on the Rabies injection given to an elderly dog but I'm sure someone will know
Shadow is 3 and has travelled abroad with us since he was 10months
Our 6 yr old Schnauzer,13 yr old cat, 17 yr od cat travel EVERYWHERE with us, 3/4 trips sur le continent each year, they're seasoned travellers now.Cheaper than kennels/catteries, and they and the missus are far happier.
tony
You raise a fair point, Tony. When we travel for longer than a few days our cat goes to a cattery / kennels. I'm not being boastful when I say that the cattery is probably the top one in the area - but, of course we pay quite big money for that. If we leave Jimmy behind then we more than double what we pay to the cattery / kennels (if he goes to a commercial organization).
Against that, I fully understand what Dave was saying in the previous post. Much as we love Jimmy (as all pet owners love their pets) we know there are times when we wish he wasn't with us on our travels so that we wouldn't have restrictions on beaches; in bars; in shops; etc.
______________________________________________________________ 30 mins 06 secs for 5kms? Not bad for an oldie...and aiming to go under 60 for 10k whilst under 60.
In the end though its your decision, I imagine he is up to date with his injections and would only need a booster I have no idea on the Rabies injection given to an elderly dog but I'm sure someone will know
This is the other little problem. Jimmy has never had any injections - Mrs j.'s decision & made initially a long time before me & she got together - apart from those that saved his life earlier this year. Thus, even to be accepted in a commercial kennels, Jimmy would need to get the injections up to date.
______________________________________________________________ 30 mins 06 secs for 5kms? Not bad for an oldie...and aiming to go under 60 for 10k whilst under 60.
We are in a similar situation. We generally take the dogs with us when in the UK but when we went to France we didn't take them with us and to be honest I think if we had we wouldn't have enjoyed the holiday as much as we did. We would certainly have been more confined. And if we had taken them and left them in the mh while we toodled around for a couple hours I would have worried myself sick. So for us it was best they stayed home.
We don't use kennels either as our oldest is a rescue dog and I can't bare the thought of him in one again. We will always only leave him with family or friends.
I would not take him abroad at his age for the first time both from the point of view of the protective injections, the possible heat and as others have said you will seriously curtail your freedom
As we are retired we go openended 6-8 weeks maybe more and we accept the restrictions travel with a dog entails
Of course there are advantages but many places are out of bounds ie towns for us. We do leave him for a couple of hours but take a weather check, he cant go on many beaches in season and in any case has no manners when he's wet through and will share his wet coat with anyone
I think your anxiety is natural in view of what happened but you and your wife deserve a holiday and if you have friends or family to look after him that sounds ideal
A daily phone call to put minds at rest sounds ok to me
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