Pet Travel Blog

What a great story about Pearl the black Labrador who was rescued in Denver! http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Dog-Rescue.html
Pearl was out on a walk with her owner when she slipped off her leash to chase a duck.  The next thing her owner knew Pearl was going down on cracking ice.  The lady was smart enough not to try and go in and get Pearl.  She got an expert to do it for her-a fire fighter who knew what he was doing. In less than 10 minutes the dog was safely returned from the cold ice to its owner.  Two significant parts to this story stand out.
First, everyone reading this story or viewing it on television had to feel so good that there was a happy ending.   Especially all of us who LOVE our dogs; it is amazing how fast things can happen on a peaceful dog walk.  Any one of use have experienced something startling and threatening when out with our pets on a simple walk.  I so clearly remember walking my dogs last summer in the evening and suddenly dog darts out of nowhere and began to attack one of my little dogs-Soozie.  It was awful.  I am reasonably sure the dog wanted to kill my dog.  Gratefully the pet sitter came running and literally pried the dog off of Soozie.  Sooz was limp from the trauma but o.k.  Thank goodness! 
The second significant part to the story of Pearl’s rescue in the ice is the importance of Pearl’s owner letting someone who knows what they are doing – save the dogs life.  Many times I get groans and grumbles from potential clients at the fees I charge to ship their pets.  They think that it should not be that difficult and why would I charge to consult, book and assist in shipping their pets?  Shipping pets to me is the same as planning travel for unaccompanied children.  You cannot be too careful and past experience is so valuable.  It is not uncommon for me to receive a phone call from a panicked traveler who is at the airport with their pet thinking everything regarding the pet’s travel is in order and it is not!  Things from wrong size crate, unacceptable crate, incorrect documentation and health certificates, too cold outside for airline regulations, co-share airline connections that are incompatible….the list goes on.   It’s pretty difficult to ‘fix’ situations when they have reached this point-actually it is almost impossible.  Yes, the business of pet travel is an “imperfect science” but it certainly seems wise to me to at least hire someone who is an expert in the field.
Why take the risk of falling in the ice with your dog and both of you are in trouble?

Being a pet travel agent is a very interesting job. There are positives as well as negatives, just like any profession. There are so few travel agents now that I sometimes wonder why I stay in this hectic and ever-changing business. I have always said that the only way a travel agent really learns their job is by making mistakes; that the difference between a good travel agent and a GREAT travel agent is the GREAT travel agent fixes their mistakes without anyone every knowing there were any!

I have decided to share with you on occasion some ‘Pet Travel Agent Advice for Dummies’. My own creative manual based on years and years of hands on experience.

Chapter 1:

#1: DOCUMENT EVERYTHING
There are so many unwritten rules in the industry and so often you will call a vendor and they will tell you one thing and then you call again, ask the exact same question and are told a totally different answer. Lesson learned: Remember and document who told you what and when; an actual name and date works wonders.
#2: NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING
The rules in the travel industry change faster than anything you have ever experienced. You may have sent a pet in cabin last month on an airline and everything went great. That is not a guarantee that the airline has not changed their policies regarding pets in the cabin now. If your client gets to the airport with Fluffy in tow and is told they no longer accept in-cabin pets you will be the first person they will call.

Lesson learned: Always verify and TRIPLE check any policies or information to be sure that nothing has changed.
#3: DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS
The travel industry has so many variables that sometimes you think you are going to go crazy. You try and think of everything you possibly can to avoid problems. You may spend weeks preparing a client and her dog to travel to South America. The requirements for the dog to enter a country can be very complicated and time sensitive. You get everything done for the pet exactly as is needed to avoid any problems with your client and the dog on arrival. You get the dreaded phone call from the airport-you focused hard on the pet and you forgot about the ‘human’ passenger. They need a Visa!

Lesson learned: You must try always to look at every minor travel detail. The airlines will not always take the time to tell you everything you must know. That is your job.
#4: TRAVEL AGENTS ARE NOT PAID COMMISSIONS BY THE AIRLINES
Travel Agencies used to receive a 10% commission baseline on every transaction ten years ago. The airlines first capped the sales commissions at 10% or $50 whichever was less and then they took them away completely. World wide airlines have not paid out commissions for a long time.

Lesson learned: Travel agents must charge fees for their services. You will need to pay for services received.

Imagine your pet, injured, bleeding, with hypothermia, soaked in urine and vomit with missing teeth or swollen gums or even worse killed. This is a harsh reality of travel on airlines for many pet owners.

Many airlines simply accept any standard small animal carrier, regardless of faulty mechanics or even missing hardware that easily harms and kills countless animals each year.

A simple search on airline reports will bring a shocking reality to the surface as the horrid tales unfold of injured, missing or killed animals that occur while traveling.

I have focused my travel skills completely on pet travel for the last 4 years and can honestly say that I have NEVER experienced anything like what is described above. The airlines have done nothing but continuously improve all aspects of their live animal and pet programs in the last 4 years. Some of the major carriers in the United States ship in excess of 50,000 pets per year. The FAA now releases monthly the number of incidents reported by the airlines in regard to live animal transport. This information can be found at http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/2006/December/0612atcr.pdf
This last week I was shipping 3 pets to Argentina. One of the dogs was very old and had a heart murmur. The vet signed the Health Certificate but strongly cautioned that the journey was going to be hard on the dog. I of course advised the client in Buenos Aires and she was worried but authorized me to go ahead and ship her dog. At the airport the entire staff could not have been more concerned and helpful with this dog. I called the care center for the airport in Houston where the dog was to lay over for a few hours and then travel onward, to check and see how she was doing. They made a special phone call to where she was, checked on her and called me back. The dog arrived in good shape and is now home with its owner in South America. That is one of many experiences I have had shipping pets and dealing with the airlines.
For me as a pet travel agent and pet shipper, the proof is in the planning when sending animals any distance on a commercial carrier. You must be sure that you prepare the pet, and crate correctly. All documentation and paperwork needs to be exact and completed. No cutting corners! Use a professional pet shipper-pet travel agent-and you and your pet will be glad you did!

P.S. Don’t cut corners on anything! Especially on the crates!

Building Trust with Customers
“From an “on-line pet travel agency” prospective”
“

Who are you? Can I trust you? These two questions underscore all business transactions. But they are particularly important when it comes to conducting business on the Internet where face-to-face interaction is eliminated. On the Internet, it has been very difficult replicating the varying degrees of trust that businesses and individuals have with each other in the ‘real world.’” Liberty Alliance Project

The distribution of travel services has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. When I first entered the travel industry 23 years ago, 90% of all airline tickets were sold by travel agencies. You used your trusty travel agent to plan, book and issue your travel. It was a common thing to visit your travel agent, talk travel, look at brochures and purchase your trip. Times have changed. Most consumers today surf the internet in search of travel information and make the majority of their travel purchase ‘on line’. Many of the online travel sites are very informative and easy to maneuver. When I dreamed of owning my own travel agency 4 years ago, I knew that I needed to offer a service or niche in travel that could not be accomplished easily on the World Wide Web. I decided to become a ‘pet travel agent’ because you cannot book your pet’s travel unless you call the vendor or find a travel agent to do it for you. I knew that for Puppy Travel to be successful, my potential customers were not within a few miles of my office, they were all around the world. The challenge: to establish creditability with clients through e-mail and the telephone. People’s pets are now considered ‘part of the family’. Helping a person ship a pet is the same to me as helping them ship one of their children. It is a HUGE responsibility, one that requires a tremendous trust relationship between the client and the ‘pet travel agent’ -me. Building confidence is very important. I can help people plan travel with their pets or ship pets traveling alone. Sometimes I have ‘escorted’ pets to destinations and transported pets coming and going from the major airport in the city I live in. Just this week we had a client who needed us to pick up his daughter’s cat and ship it to him in Boston. Talk about trust. My employee [whom I would trust with anyone’s pet on the planet] drove an hour and a half to where the cat was to collect it. When she arrived, as luck would have it, the cat was not to be found. We both knew that the cat was ‘hiding’ and would surface eventually, but not on our schedule. I called and advised my client of the situation. Luckily he was cool about it. Twenty four hours later, we were called, told that the cat was back and to come back and get it. We did. Because the cat was to depart on a very early AM flight to Boston, I had to take the cat home for the night. The cat seemed just fine with coming to my home. I fed it, watered it and gave it a cozy spot to sleep for the night-away from 2 very curious dogs. At 5AM I packed up the cat, put it in my van and drove it to the airport to ship it. Bottom line-my client had to trust me with his cat and I had to trust the client and his cat. I have never met this client, will more than likely never meet this client but I know his cat very well. I have slept with client’s dogs, traveled with other client’s dogs half way around the world and driven in pouring down rain storms to deliver pets to wanting owners. Many years ago I heard the golfer Gary Player lecture on what his keys to success were. The only one that stayed with me was “there is no substitute for personal contact”. So the greatest challenge any person with an internet based company is to find a way to create some kind of ‘personal contact’ through email, and the telephone. One of my conditions on doing business with anyone is that I have to at least hear their voice and have a phone conversation before we begin pet travel services. Even if it means getting up in the middle of the night to call a potential client in Australia or Africa, it is worth it.

Besides the pets, the thing I love the most about my client’s is getting to know them and providing for them unparalleled pet travel service. When they trust me and I trust them it is a great thing for everyone-including Fluffy.

What makes a good travel agent? Do people use travel agents anymore and what in the world is a ‘pet travel agent’? Good questions! In my opinion a good travel agent is “worth their weight in gold’. Not only can they save you time and money but their experience and understanding of what is happening the in the world of travel is exceptional. So what does a ‘pet travel agency’ do that is different from a regular travel agency or that can just be accomplished on the internet? A PET TRAVEL AGENT does everything that a typical travel agent does plus adds pets to the mix. If you are traveling by airline with your pet, you cannot confirm it over the internet. Airlines have their own policies regarding pets and travel and they tend to change them without any notice. Here’s a simple example: You are flying on Delta Air Lines from Minneapolis to Miami and decide you want to ‘check your pet’ to travel with you on the trip. Your e-ticket information may read Delta Air Lines but actually you may be flying on a Northwest Airlines aircraft on one leg of the flight and on Delta Air Lines equipment on the connection. That’s not o.k. for your pet! The airlines do not ‘interline’ pets like they do luggage. If the airline you are planning to travel on has a mechanical and needs to send you on another airline at the last minute, the airline they reschedule you for may have a ‘no pet policy’. You arrive in Miami and the internet booking site said that the hotel you are planning to stay in accepts pets but you find out at check-in that you are required to pay a $250 non refundable deposit when staying with a pet and they only put pets in ‘smoking rooms’. Add any international destination to pet travel and you enter an entire new arena of travel challenges. That is why you will find it to be so worth the money to hire a ‘professional’ to do your pet travel arrangements. Do your due diligence, hire someone who has expertise to take care of your needs and your budget and of course if you are traveling with Fido, make sure you work with someone who loves dogs like you do!

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ~ Anatole France